Associated Press

LONDON (AP) - A rare radioactive substance killed an ex-KGB spy turned Kremlin critic, the British government said Friday. In a dramatic statement written before he died, the man called Russian President Vladimir Putin "barbaric and ruthless" and blamed him personally for the poisoning.

Putin, in Finland, offered his condolences for the death of Alexander Litvinenko and denied any involvement. He called the release of the deathbed statement a "political provocation" by his opponents.

Litvinenko died late Thursday at a London hospital after spending days in intensive care as doctors puzzled over what was causing his organs to fail and attacking his bone marrow and destroying his immune system.

Britain's Health Protection Agency said Friday that the radioactive element polonium-210 had been found in his urine, and the police said traces of radiation were found at Litvinenko's home and a ritzy hotel bar and sushi restaurant he visited on the day he became ill.

Police said they were treating the case as an "unexplained death" - but not yet as a murder.

The 43-year-old Litvinenko, who fiercely criticized Putin's government from his refuge in London since 2000, told police he believed he was poisoned Nov. 1 while investigating the October slaying of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin.

Litvinenko's statement, read by his friend Alex Goldfarb to reporters outside the hospital, put the blame for his death squarely on Putin.

He accused Putin of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value."

"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed," the statement said.

"You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life."

Goldfarb said Litvinenko dictated the statement before he lost consciousness Tuesday, and signed it in the presence of his wife, Marina.

Putin strongly denied involvement by his government.

"A death of a man is always a tragedy and I deplore this," the Russian leader said when asked about Litvinenko during a news conference after a meeting with European Union leaders.

Putin said the fact that Litvinenko's statement was released only after his death showed it was a provocation. "It's extremely regrettable that such a tragic event as death is being used for political provocation," he said.

At a meeting Friday with Russian Ambassador Yury Fedotov at London's Foreign Office, British diplomats asked Moscow to provide all assistance necessary to a police inquiry into the death, government officials said. Putin pledged to cooperate.

Home Secretary John Reid convened the British government's crisis committee Friday to discuss the death, a Cabinet Office spokeswoman said. Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office said he was in Scotland and did not attend.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the United States has sought information on the case from British authorities. "We have been told that they have no definitive conclusions and that they are conducting an investigation," Casey said.

The Health Protection Agency described poisoning with polonium-210 as "an unprecedented event."

"I've been in radiation sciences for 30-odd years and I'm not aware of any such incident," said Roger Cox, director of the agency's center for radiation, chemicals and environmental hazards.

The agency's chief executive, Pat Troop, said the high level of polonium-210 indicated Litvinenko "would either have to have eaten it, inhaled it or taken it in through a wound."

Troop said the agency was evaluating whether it was safe to perform an autopsy.

Peter Clarke, head of London's anti-terrorist police, said officers and military radiation experts were searching several locations in London.

Traces of radiation had been found at Litvinenko's north London house, the sushi restaurant where he met a contact Nov. 1 and a hotel he visited earlier that day, Clarke said. The restaurant and part of the hotel were closed, with officers removing materials in heavy metal boxes.

Clarke said extensive tests by forensic toxicologists on behalf of police - which began before Litvinenko's death - had on Friday confirmed the presence of polonium-210.

"There is no risk to the public unless they came into close contact with the men or their meals," said Katherine Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency.

Experts said small amounts of polonium-210 - but not enough to kill someone - are used legitimately in Britain and elsewhere for industrial purposes.

Professor Dudley Goodhead, a radiation expert at the Medical Research Council, said that "to poison someone, much larger amounts are required and this would have to be manmade, perhaps from a particle accelerator or a nuclear reactor."

Chris Lloyd, a British radiation protection adviser, said it would be relatively easy to smuggle polonium into the country, because its alpha radiation would not set off radiation detectors.

Doctors treating Litvinenko had said Thursday that they could not explain his rapid decline. They discounted earlier theories that the father of three had been poisoned with the toxic metal thallium.

Lewis, the Health Protection Agency spokeswoman, said doctors had not discovered the presence of polonium-210 in Litvinenko earlier because hospitals do not normally test for the alpha-ray radiation it emits.

University College Hospital, where Litvinenko died, said Friday it could not comment further because the case was being investigated by police.

Litvinenko's friends had little doubt about who was to blame - Putin's regime.

They said the former spy, who sought asylum in Britain in 2000 and became a citizen, worked tirelessly to uncover corruption in Russia's Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, and unmask Politkovskaya's killers.

Litvinenko had worked for the KGB and then the Federal Security Service until he publicly accused his superiors in 1998 of ordering him to kill Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky. He spent nine months in jail on charges of abuse of office, but was later acquitted and moved to Britain.

In Moscow, pro-Kremlin legislators pointed at Berezovsky, who amassed a fortune in dubious privatization deals after the 1991 Soviet collapse but fled to London after falling out of favor with Putin. He has been a persistent critic of Putin and worked with Litvinenko.

Lawmakers questioned whether the two critics had a falling out and argued the Kremlin had nothing to gain from Litvinenko's death. "I think this is another game of some kind by Berezovsky," Valery Dyatlenko said on Channel One.

Litvinenko's father, Walter, said his son "fought this regime, and this regime got him."

"It was an excruciating death and he was taking it as a real man," Walter Litvinenko told reporters outside the hospital, his voice choked with emotion.

Goldfarb said the attack bore "all the hallmarks of a very professional, sophisticated and specialist operation."

Another friend, Andrei Nekrasov, said Litvinenko told him: "The bastards got me, but they won't get everybody."

- Associated Press writer Maria Cheng contributed to this report.

Gunman at Miami Herald arrested 2 hours after demanding to see editor, prompting evacuation

MIAMI (AP) - A cartoonist carrying a gun and dressed in camouflage surrendered to police at The Miami Herald's building Friday, more than two hours after arriving and demanding to see an editor of the newspaper's Spanish-language sister paper, police said. - No injuries were reported, and no shots were fired.

Jose Varela carried a semiautomatic pistol loaded with 30 rounds of ammunition, police chief John Timoney said. Varela had problems with El Nuevo Herald, where he worked as a contractor, that included its position on Cuban emigres.

Varela was a contract cartoonist for the newspaper and had routine access to the building, officials said.

A police negotiator talked Varela into surrendering peacefully at about 2:45 p.m., Timoney said.

"Once he calmed down and he realized what he was doing was not appropriate, he decided we would work to bring him out," said police negotiator Serafin Ordonez, who spoke with Varela for 30 to 40 minutes in Spanish. "No one was in danger. He kept repeating that he didn't want to hurt nobody, that he's not a violent person, that he's not a criminal."

Varela told a reporter for The Miami Herald during the incident that he was "the new director of the newspaper."

"I'm here to unmask the true conflicts in the newspaper," Varela told The Miami Herald. "They laugh at exiles here. There are problems with payment."

Varela called attorney Joe Garcia a couple of times from inside the building, Garcia told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Garcia said Varela was concerned about a conflict of interest at El Nuevo Herald.

"All that he wants people to know is that he wants the truth to come out," Garcia said. "I think he needs some time to work some things out."

Varela isolated himself on the sixth floor of the downtown Miami building that houses The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, police said. The floor was evacuated, and officers carrying weapons and wearing protective gear set up a perimeter around the building, where evacuees gathered.

News staff remained on the fifth floor to cover the story.

The Herald reported on its Web site that Varela demanded to see El Nuevo Herald's executive editor, Humberto Castello.

It was the second situation involving a gun at the newspaper in the past year and a half. In July 2005, former city commissioner Arthur E. Teele Jr. fatally shot himself in the Herald lobby after asking to speak with columnist Jim DeFede. Teele had been under investigation for corruption and was just indicted by a federal grand jury on fraud charges.

DeFede was fired for recording his telephone conversations with Teele just before the incident without the politician's permission.

News broke in September that eight of El Nuevo Herald's reporters and 29 of its freelancers were paid to work for the U.S. government's Radio and TV Marti networks. The government beams programming into Cuba aimed at undermining the communist Castro government.

The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald are separate newspapers, but they share an office and are both published by The Miami Herald Media Co. El Nuevo Herald is one of the nation's largest Spanish-language newspapers.

6 degrees of 'Seinfeld': NYC's 'real Kramer' and Richards

NEW YORK (AP) - The first call came from the Midwest. Before long, the phone was ringing, and ringing, and ringing again: Satellite radio. Fox News. Extra.

Yada, yada, yada.

For Kenny Kramer, role model for the "Seinfeld" character who shared his surname, each call was a reminder of the intersection between his real life and his sitcom doppelganger. Actor Michael Richards - the on-air Cosmo Kramer - made headlines with a racist rant last week in a Los Angeles comedy club.

Suddenly, everybody wanted to know what Kramer - despite the degrees of separation - thought about the man who played the character based on his life.

Confused? So was Kramer.

"I did at least 15 to 20 interviews," said Kramer, talking to interviewee No. 16 or 21. "All hell broke loose. There were lots of e-mails. They were about 9-1 positive. A guy who wrote a story in the Daily News said, `I hope this doesn't hurt your business."'

Ah, the business - where Kramer has enjoyed the merger of man and myth for nearly 11 years. Kramer, now 62, launched the "Kramer Reality Tour" to take Sein-fans on a tour of Manhattan locales featured in the Emmy-winning NBC comedy series.

It remains a brilliant concept, bringing together New York real estate and Hollywood surreality. There was the real New York Health and Racquet Club, where the fake Kramer met a bogus Salman Rushdie. Or the Midtown office building where the fake Kramer discovered a publisher for his coffee table book about coffee tables.

The real Kramer, who initially lobbied to play himself on the program, subsequently met with Richards on several occasions. His insight after the actor's meltdown during a stand-up comedy appearance: Richards had little in common with his off-kilter "Seinfeld" persona.

"I know the guy," Kramer said of Richards. "He's not this outgoing ball of fun that people would expect Kramer to be. They think he's be exciting, lovable, laughable. But he's quiet, introspective, even paranoid. He's a very wound-up guy. But I don't think he's a racist."

The real Kramer lived 10 years in a Hell's Kitchen apartment across the hall from "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David, and his life became the framework for Richards' quirky, bumbling Seinfeld sidekick, right down to the location of Kramer's apartment.

There was even a slight physical resemblance.

But Richards' repeated use of a racial epithet in shouting down two hecklers on Nov. 17 had the genuine Kramer gently reminding folks of the difference between inspiration and imitation - even after Richards apologized during a television appearance with Jerry Seinfeld.

The real Kramer said in an interview that he's most annoyed by commentators' statements that "Kramer is racist." He notes, "Kramer is a fictitious character. Michael Richards is an actor who played that character."

Kramer said he wasn't too worried though that people would confuse Kramer, the character, with Kramer, the person.

Just in case, however, he issued a statement drawing the distinction: "I know the public is smart enough to realize that Michael Richards' personal actions in no way reflect on the character he portrayed on television or me, Kenny Kramer, the real person that the character was based on."

Kramer managed to find a silver lining in the confusion.

"You know what the good news is?" he asked. "Judith Regan is now on a plane to California, trying to sign Michael Richards to a book deal: `If I Were a Racist, Here's What I Would Have Said."'

On the Net:

http://www.kennykramer.com/

Chicago police defend actions in Thanksgiving Day standoff with gunman, who killed hostage

CHICAGO (AP) - The family of a slain 22-year-old woman said Friday they were upset and confused by how police handled a 23-hour Thanksgiving Day standoff that ended with a gunman killing his hostage and himself. - "We're angry," said India Cooks, 30, whose cousin Tasha Cooks was killed. "This is about, 'Did you do the best job you could to save a life?"'

First Deputy Superintendent Dana Starks said negotiators had tried for hours to coax Lance Johnson, 21, to end the standoff, but SWAT team members rushed the third-floor apartment immediately after the sound of a gunshot shortly after 1 a.m. on Friday, he said.

"We have protocols and procedures we had been following," Starks said, without elaborating. "At no time did the Chicago Police Department fire a weapon."

"They (police) talked to him. He assured us he wouldn't kill her. He said, 'All I want is a cigarette and some soda pop.' He said, 'I'm not going to hurt her,"' India Cooks said.

Police have not released the victim's identity, but relatives said she was Cooks, a nursing home worker. The hostage and Johnson were the only people in the apartment, Starks said.

Frustrated relatives and neighbors said police should have done more to end the standoff. A group of about 10 people angrily questioned police who arrived at the apartment on Friday afternoon.

"I think police could have gotten more control of the situation and could have gotten there before," said Donzell McKinzie, Cooks' 23-year-old brother. "We've just been crying all day."

Police have not said whether Cooks and Johnson knew each other, but family members said they were neighbors.

Cooks used the apartment's phone to call her great-grandmother earlier in the day, family members said. Around 8 p.m., she told them she was being beaten.

"That was the last time I heard … her, and she said she didn't want to talk anymore," McKinzie said.

The standoff took place inside a three-story brick apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood, which sits along Lake Michigan.

James Milton, 35, has lived in neighborhood for 18 years and knew Cooks.

"She was a nice, quiet little girl. She didn't really bother anyone. She was someone everyone knew," Milton said.

Minden dentist arrested after confronting construction crew

MINDEN, Nev. (AP) - A Minden dentist faces assault and battery charges for allegedly confronting a construction crew with boxing gloves and a heavy chain.

Douglas Moss, 42, was released on his own recognizance earlier this week after appearing in East Fork Justice Court.

"This is at worst an allegation that someone had too much to drink and acted in an aberrant manner," said Moss' lawyer, Tod Young.

According to authorities, a construction worker said Moss showed up at a job site around noon Monday, wearing boxing gloves and carrying a heavy chain over his shoulder.

The crew was working down the street from Moss' home.

The worker said Moss appeared angry and intoxicated when he assumed a boxing stance and lunged at crew members.

Moss allegedly punched the man and started swinging the chain, but another crew member yanked it away from him.

A sushi stop, a hotel bar - London investigators trace steps of poisoned ex-Russian spy

LONDON (AP) - A swank hotel where he sipped tea. A sushi bar where he had soup.

Investigators are tracing Alexander Litvinenko's last steps to find out how a rare radioactive substance could have killed the former KGB agent and vociferous critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Radioactive traces have been found at both places in London - the Millennium Hotel's dimly lit Turner Bar near the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square and the Itsu Sushi restaurant near Piccadilly Circus.

Litvinenko had meetings in both spots before he was taken to the emergency room suffering from stomach pains and nausea.

On the morning of Nov. 1, he went to the hotel to see another ex-KGB spy, Andrei Lugovoy, who was in London to attend a soccer match involving the Russian team CSKA Moscow, and two other men Litvinenko had never met before.

Lugovoy said in Moscow on Friday that he was accompanied by a friend named Dmitry Kovtun and a third man he didn't identify. He told Russian media that Litvinenko discussed a business venture and said he was homesick for Russia.

Friend Alex Goldfarb said Litvinenko reported having a cup of tea during the meeting, but Lugovoy said he didn't recall the former agent either eating or drinking.

Litvinenko's friends said his patriotism coupled with a sense of false protection from his British asylum prompted him to reach out to potential Russian dissenters who might have bolstered allegations that Putin's government was involved in corruption in the spy service.

"Alex was open to approaches from people who said they had information about abuses in Russia," Goldfarb told The Associated Press. "He would meet people without precautions, because he felt as a British citizen he would be protected from falling prey to Russian government forces."

While at the hotel, Litvinenko told the group of his next meeting, Lugovoy said.

Litvinenko had arranged to see a contact who claimed to have information about the slaying of a friend, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya - a death that critics of the Russian government have blamed on state security forces.

That meeting was the afternoon of Nov. 1 at Itsu Sushi, a frequent rendezvous spot for Litvinenko and his friend Italian academic Mario Scaramella.

Scaramella said he brought along an e-mail purporting to list emigres to Britain being targeted by Russian agents as well as the identities of Politkovskaya's killers. The academic declined to say who sent the e-mail to him.

Litvinenko ate a bowl of soup before he headed for a table where the two could discuss the secret e-mail, Goldfarb said.

Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen rebel exiled in London and a Putin critic, said he saw Litvinenko after the sushi meal and said the former spy was excited by the meeting. But Goldfarb said that after Litvinenko carefully analyzed the four-page e-mail, he doubted its authenticity.

Hours after the sushi bar meeting, Litvinenko was taken to Barnet General Hospital in north London with stomach pains. His condition gradually worsened over the next two weeks.

In a weakened state, he gave an interview to British Broadcasting Corp.'s Russian Service, saying for the first time that he thought he had been poisoned.

Unable to determine the cause of his illness, doctors transferred Litvinenko to a specialist unit at University College Hospital in central London on Nov. 17.

He died late Thursday, and investigators announced Friday that he had been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, a rare substance.

"We will trace possible witnesses, examine Litvinenko's movements at relevant times, including when he first became ill and identify people he may have met," said Peter Clarke, head of London's anti-terrorist police.

What is polonium-210 and how can it kill you?

LONDON (AP) - Polonium-210 - the radioactive substance that killed a former Russian spy in London - is one of the world's rarest elements, first discovered in the 19th century by scientists Marie and Pierre Curie.

It is highly lethal when ingested and extremely hard to detect, experts said Friday.

For days doctors struggled to identify the poison that led to the rapid deterioration of Alexander Litvinenko's health, and ultimately his death late Thursday.

Britain's Health Protection Agency said Friday that polonium-210 was found in his urine.

The agency's chief executive, Pat Troop, said the high level of polonium-210 indicated Litvinenko "would either have to have eaten it, inhaled it or taken it in through a wound."

Police were investigating, but said they were treating it as an "unexplained death" for now.

"This seems to have been a substance carefully chosen for its ability to be hard to detect," said Dr. Philip Walker, a physics professor at the University of Surrey.

Polonium occurs naturally in very low concentrations in the Earth's crust, and experts said small amounts - but not enough to kill someone - are used legitimately in Britain and elsewhere for industrial purposes.

Polonium-210 was a critical component in early nuclear weapons, and the former Soviet Union used polonium in power supply systems for spacecraft in the 1970s. It also is used in industrial devices designed to eliminate static electricity.

Professor Dudley Goodhead, a radiation expert at the Medical Research Council, said that "to poison someone, much larger amounts are required and this would have to be manmade, perhaps from a particle accelerator or a nuclear reactor."

The element can be a byproduct from the chemical processing of uranium, but usually is made artificially in a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator. These nuclear facilities are monitored and tightly regulated under international agreements.

Chris Lloyd, a British radiation protection adviser, said it would be relatively easy to smuggle polonium into a country, because its alpha radiation would not set off radiation detectors.

Polonium is so rare that only about 100 grams is believed to be produced each year, said Dr. Mike Keir, a radiation protection adviser at Royal Victoria Infirmary.

"Only a very, very small amount of this would need to be ingested to kill," Keir said. "Unless you can remove the material, there's very little you can do except treat the symptoms."

Given Litvinenko's symptoms - including hair loss, organ failure and immune system breakdown - experts said it was understandable why doctors didn't initially recognize polonium-210 as the cause.

"Trying to identify the exact agent that was making him sick was like looking for a needle in a haystack," said Dr. Alistair Hay, a professor of environmental toxicology at Leeds University. Numerous toxins are capable of causing such serious damage without being immediately identified in the body, he said.

The alpha rays emitted by polonium are extremely hard to detect, and a fatal dose of the element may have rapidly penetrated his bone marrow without raising immediate suspicion. Earlier this week, doctors said Litvinenko was in need of a bone marrow transplant.

"As a result of alpha ray radiation, there are very clear genetic changes in the body," Keir said. "But to know for certain that it was polonium radiation, you need to actually find polonium particles."

Polonium was discovered in 1898 by Nobel laureates Marie and Pierre Curie as they were searching for the cause of radiation decay in uranium. They named it polonium in honor of her country of origin, Poland.

The Health Protection Agency said the use of polonium as a deliberate poisoning would be "an unprecedented event." Several experts also said they were unaware of any other known poisonings from the element.

"I've been in radiation sciences for 30-odd years and I'm not aware of any such incident," said Roger Cox, director of the agency's center for radiation, chemicals and environmental hazards.

- Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

British solo sailor rescued by rival after Southern Ocean capsize

GOSPORT, England (AP) - Dressed in a survival suit, Alex Thomson stepped onto his life raft in the midst of the frigid Southern Ocean Thursday night. Large waves and 25 mph winds blasted him as he floated away from his capsized yacht in the midst of the an around-the-world race. - All night, he could see the boat of fellow British sailor Mike Golding, his rescuer.

Golding led a dramatic rescue on Friday morning in the midst of the Velux 5 Oceans solo race, but later on Friday, it was Golding's yacht that needed attention.

The mast on his yacht was broken in two places.

On Thursday, Golding turned back in heavy waves and wind to help Thomson, whose yacht had capsized in after the keel failed. Golding picked up Thomson at daybreak Friday about 1,000 miles southeast of Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

Thomson had to get into his life raft and then allow it to drift away from his yacht before Golding could approach and pick him up because of the rough conditions, race organizers said.

"This has been without doubt the most terrifying and emotional experience of my life," Thomson said in a statement from organizers of the race.

Golding described the rescue as "very scary at times."

"I am hugely grateful to Mike for turning back to rescue me. The operation was fairly hairy and the sea was lumpy which wasn't very pleasant for either myself or Mike," Thomson said.

About six hours after the rescue, Golding reported the broken mast on his yacht Ecover. The mainsail remained intact with Golding and Thomson working to get back under sail, officials said.

Race officials said the two were working to get under sail and would begin heading northwest to Cape Town, South Africa, some 1,000 miles away.

The two are now headed toward finish of the race's first leg, in Fremantle, Australia. The statement said Golding asked Thomson not to participate in sailing, or help in any other way, due to the single-handed nature of the race.

Golding will be credited with the time he lost due to the rescue, race officials said.

As of early Friday, defending champion Bernard Stamm was leading the race, followed by Golding, Kojiro Shiraishi, Robin Knox-Johnston, Graham Dalton and Unai Basurko.

The fleet left Bilbao, Spain, on Oct. 22. The yachts are scheduled to finish the first leg in Fremantle, Australia, in early December. The race ends in Bilbao in April.

The around-the-world race has been has been staged every four years since 1982.

On The Net:

Velux 5 Oceans: www.velux5oceans.com

Amidst a sea of victims, Anne Frank's name stands out in vast Nazi archive

BAD AROLSEN, Germany (AP) - The lists run into the tens of thousands - men, women and children tossed into the Nazi machinery of death from just one small country, Holland. Most are unknown, lost in the ashes of the Holocaust. - But buried in List No. 40 in a frayed ledger in the world's largest storehouse of documents on Holocaust victims, the name Anne Frank is quickly recognizable.

Today, her diary has made her world famous, but on a day in September 1944 she was just another name - a terrified teenager herded into a train of cattle cars with 1,018 other Jews, headed east to the concentration camps.

After World War II, the Dutch Red Cross collected the deportation lists from the Westerbork transit camp and sent the names to the International Tracing Service, or ITS, the repository of Nazi papers set up to help trace missing people in the postwar chaos.

More than six decades after the war ended, the International Committee of the Red Cross is due to open the vast ITS archive to survivors, their relatives and to Holocaust researchers for the first time.

Its records on 17.5 million individuals have been used so far only to help unite families, track the fate of millions of displaced people, and later to provide certification supporting compensation claims. Visitors were discouraged.

The files, stored in 16 miles of shelves and cabinet space in this quiet spa town in central Germany, provide the most complete collection of documents that the Nazis kept at their thousands of concentration camps, slave labor centers and extermination grounds.

More archives are scattered around what was once the Third Reich. Each is meant to preserve and commemorate its own corner of wartime agony. Though they share a common purpose, their history of cooperation with each other is spotty, at best.

At ITS, Anne Frank's name appears only once among the 50 million pages of Nazi documents, the archivists say. She is among dozens of Franks on the alphabetized ledger of Westerbork deportations from May 19 to Sept. 6, 1944.

The book-length deportation ledger, compiled by the Red Cross after the war from records seized at Westerbork, sheds no new light on the Anne Frank story. Yet it is still electrifying to scan the endless litany of doomed names and suddenly come across "Frank, Annelies M. / 12.6.29 / A'stm, Merwedeplein 37 / 3.9.44 /."

The entry stands for name, birth date, address in Amsterdam and the date she boarded the train to the concentration camps. The final column, destination, is blank.

"If it's not written, that means Auschwitz," said ITS chief archivist Udo Jost, referring to the death camp in Poland.

Anne, her sister Margot and their parents - who were not Dutch citizens but German refugees - were arrested in August 1944 with four other Jews hiding with them in the back of a canal-side warehouse. They were betrayed by an unknown informant.

Anne was 15 years old.

Since the English publication of "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" in 1952, and its subsequent reprintings as "The Diary of Anne Frank," millions of readers have felt intimately connected to the girl who matured in its pages from innocent childhood into her precocious, sometimes rebellious teens.

The diary pages, scattered in the concealed apartment where the family hid for 25 months, were pieced together by her father - the family's only survivor - and would be read by an estimated 30 million people in more than 65 languages.

Anne's last diary entry was on Aug. 1, 1944, three days before the Franks were arrested.

Part of what happened after that is told in the archives of the Dutch Red Cross in The Hague. It has four lists on which her name appears: the roundup list on the day the Frank family was arrested Aug. 4, the list of deportees leaving Amsterdam for Westerbork on Aug. 8, the arrival list at Westerbork of Jews from Amsterdam and Breda on Aug. 8, and the Sept. 3 list of deportees from Westerbork.

Of the 107,000 Jews deported to Germany from the Netherlands, the Red Cross counts only 5,200 survivors. Five times as many Dutch were coerced into the German labor force, and hundreds of thousands of Dutch sympathizers volunteered to serve in the Waffen SS or pro-Nazi Dutch police and paramilitary groups. Some 5,000 died in the service of the Germans.

The Bad Arolsen archive, long closed to the public in part because of privacy issues, is opening up, possibly within a year, because of pressure from survivor groups and from the United States, one of 11 countries that govern the files. The decision was approved last May by representatives of all 11, but only two - the United States and Israel - have ratified it.

When they finally gain access, scholars expect it to enrich their perspectives and understanding of the Holocaust.

In one of the gray metal cabinets at Bad Arolsen is a thin manila folder containing a few letters asking the Red Cross for information about Anne and the family, including one from Bernhard Elias - cousin Buddy - in Switzerland.

The official records had little information to add.

The final months of Anne's life is known from her father's memoirs, from the few survivors who saw her and from descriptions of camp life.

Historian Harry Paape, writing for the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, says Anne and her sister Margot probably were moved from Auschwitz on Oct. 28 to Bergen-Belsen, which was not a death camp with gas chambers but a concentration camp where inmates often died of disease, hunger and exposure.

Survivor Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper said in an Oscar-winning 1995 documentary that she saw Anne in her last days, ailing and covered with lice. "Anne had thrown away her clothes and she came to us crying, wrapped only in her gray blanket," she said.

Anne and Margot Frank died during a typhus epidemic that swept through Bergen-Belsen from February to April 1945, killing an estimated 35,000 people.

A 1960 Dutch Red Cross document in the manila file cites a death certificate issued by the Amsterdam City Council six years earlier which says she was "presumed dead as of March 31, 1945."

British forces liberated the camp two weeks later.

- AP correspondent Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

On the Net:

Anne Frank House: www.annefrank.org

China punishes officials for river spill that cut supplies to millions

BEIJING (AP) - Environment officials and senior executives of a state-owned petroleum company and its listed subsidiary have been punished for a toxic river spill a year ago that forced officials to temporarily cut off water to millions living in northeastern China and Russia, state media reported Friday.

The accident, one of China's worst toxic spills, occurred in November 2005 when an explosion at a chemical plant discharged tons of benzene and other dangerous chemicals into the Songhua River in Jilin province.

Xinhua News Agency said the State Council, China's Cabinet, meted out "administrative punishments" to senior executives of the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. and its New York- and Hong Kong-listed subsidiary, PetroChina Co. Ltd.

Administrative punishment usually means the person is given a warning, demoted or removed from his or her position.

Duan Wende, vice general manager of the China National Petroleum Corp. and senior vice president of PetroChina, which owned the plant, received a demerit on his personal record, Xinhua said.

Nine other executives, including Yu Li, board chairman and general manager of the Jilin branch of PetroChina, were either given serious warnings, demoted or dismissed, the report said, but did not give details.

Wang Liying, director of the Jilin provincial environmental protection department, was given a "serious demerit" on his record, according to the report.

A State Council investigation showed the Nov. 13, 2005, explosion was caused by negligence and a failure to observe regulations on the plant's operations, Xinhua said.

The blast killed eight people and injured 60, but also forced authorities to shut off water supplies to 3.8 million people in the city of Harbin for five days, and strained relations with Russia, because the Songhua River feeds other rivers that flow through the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk.

Local authorities were accused at the time of reacting too slowly to the accident and delaying public disclosure of the spill.

Most of China's canals, rivers and lakes are severely tainted by agricultural and household pollution. Chinese leaders say the country faces a critical water shortage, partly due to chronic pollution and chemical accidents.

In August, China said it would spend $125 billion to improve water treatment and recycling by 2010 to fight the mounting threat of urban water pollution.

Japanese planners reveal design of world's tallest tower for downtown Tokyo

TOKYO (AP) - Japanese planners on Friday revealed the design of a huge broadcast tower that is set to become the world's tallest structure upon completion in 2011. - The tower will stand 2,013-feet tall, according to Tobu Railway Co., which has provided land for the project. It will claim the title from the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, a 1,815-foot communications structure and outlook point which is currently the world's tallest freestanding structure at 1,815 feet.

Dubbed the "New Tokyo Tower," the building will replace a 1,090-foot tower built in 1958.

The new tower, designed by award-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando and sculptor Kiichi Sumikawa, will stand on a triangular foundation. But its slender body will turn into a cylinder as it stretches upward, its bluish-silver color blending into the sky.

The tower is being built by Japan's six top broadcasters and is expected to greatly bolster television and radio transmissions in the capital.

Though it now competes with a plethora of skyscrapers, the old tower is one of Tokyo's most visible landmarks and is visited by 2.5 million tourists each year. The new tower will stand in the capital's Sumida ward, an area wedged between the Sumida and Arakawa rivers and known for its old-Tokyo ambiance.

Sumida ward beat out 15 other areas in Tokyo to host the tower, many of which were dropped after failing broadcast feasibility tests or coming up short in other ways, including the availability of mass transit.

Award-winning show dog becomes urban legend since escape from New York's Kennedy Airport

NEW YORK (AP) - In the nine months since escaping her travel cage at Kennedy Airport, Vivi the wayward whippet has joined the Central Park coyote, high-rise tiger, Harlem Meer caiman and Molly the fugitive feline in New York's ever-growing pantheon of urban animal legends. - She was reported dozens of times, roaming cemeteries with other dogs, or hanging around stores in the borough of Queens, in some cases miles from the tarmac where she disappeared while awaiting a flight home to California on Feb. 15. A day earlier, she had won an Award of Merit at the annual Westminster Kennel Club show.

Owners Jil Walton and Paul Lepiane offered a reward for Vivi's return but have kept a low profile. This week, their lawyer, Joyce Randazzo, said they still hope to recover the sleek, 4-year-old brindle and white whippet, formally known as Champion Bohem C'est la Vie, and the reward, an unspecified amount, still stands.

According to a map published Nov. 18 by The New York Times, Vivi was reported at more than 45 different locations before Aug. 7, when the sightings suddenly stopped, raising fears that she might be dead or left the area.

Richard Gentles, director of administration for Animal Care & Control of New York City, said his organization dispatched rescue teams after "five or six calls" on Vivi in the past several months, but all proved negative.

"For a dog like that to be able to survive this long would be very difficult unless somebody picked it up," Gentles said. "I hope it's true that somebody has the dog and doesn't recognize it. It does happen."

On Wednesday, a volunteer group that devotes itself to finding Vivi reported a new lead: an anonymous caller who had seen her neighbor with a dog that resembled the elusive canine.

"She said he takes it to work every day. We asked if it was a greyhound and she said `No, it's a whippet,"' said Rosa Chile, who answers calls at a toll-free number. "She sounded very legitimate, but she was afraid."

Chile said the area of the purported sighting was being watched, but would not give other details, even where it is - other than "a few minutes from Kennedy airport."

Bonnie Folz, a professional dog trainer who lives near the airport and has led the search effort for Vivi, said she did not think the dog is still roaming free, and unless she met with misfortune, is in someone's custody.

"I really think somebody has her and that person can't keep the dog under wraps forever," she said.

Folz is conducting an overall review of the Vivi search with Karen Goin, a pet detective who uses her three trained dogs to track missing pets. They recently used a coat once worn by Vivi to check out a report in the Rego Park section of Queens, but the dogs did not find her scent, Folz said.

Recovered or not, Vivi already has joined the colorful list of animals occupying niches as urban legends in Gotham, says Steve Zeitlin, the director of City Lore, a center for the study of such things.

Just two months after Vivi vanished into a wildlife area adjoining JFK, a cat named Molly became trapped inside a wall of a delicatessen in Manhattan's Greenwich Village where she earned her keep as a mouser. It took two weeks to extricate the feline without damaging the landmark building.

Other incidents in recent years involved a full-grown tiger living in a Manhattan apartment, an alligator-like caiman that was recovered from the Harlem Meer pond in Central Park and a truly wily coyote that led police and animal experts on a chase through the park before it was captured.

Zeitlin noted that the frequent reports of Vivi in cemeteries enhances a "ghostly" image, made to order for urban lore.

"I believe the dog has already made it," Zeitlin said. "The sense of an urban legend is something that comes out of daily life or ordinary circumstances and has the stuff of fiction in it, something that is always about to be proved true.

"With this dog, it is always a sighting that can't quite be confirmed."

Miami Herald employees evacuated after gunman demands to see editor; police say man in custody

MIAMI (AP) - A gun-wielding cartoonist dressed in camouflage surrendered to police at The Miami Herald's building Friday afternoon, more than two hours after arriving and demanding to see an editor of the newspaper's Spanish-language sister paper, police said. - No injuries were reported.

Police spokesman Delrish Moss said the man, a cartoonist who "says he's been censored by the Herald," was carrying what appeared to be a machine gun. Moss did not identify the suspect by name.

Attorney Joe Garcia said the cartoonist, Jose Varela, called him a couple of times from inside the building. Varela was concerned about a conflict of interest at El Nuevo Herald, Garcia said.

"All that he wants people to know is that he wants the truth to come out," Garcia said. "I think he needs some time to work some things out."

The Miami Herald reported on its Web site that Varela walked into the sixth-floor newsroom, appeared agitated and demanded to see El Nuevo Herald Executive Editor Humberto Castello. About 12 to 15 employees were in the newsroom, employees said.

Rick Hirsch, The Miami Herald's managing editor for multimedia, remained in the building on the fifth floor with news staff trying to cover the story. He said he didn't know what might have upset Varela.

Hirsch said the building has security guards, but they are not armed.

"You have to have an ID to get in, but if this is somebody who came into the building regularly, there'd probably not be a problem," he said.

It was the second situation involving a gun at the newspaper building in the past year and half. In July 2005, former city commissioner Arthur E. Teele Jr. fatally shot himself in the Herald lobby after asking to speak with columnist Jim DeFede. Teele had been under investigation for corruption and had just been indicted by a federal grand jury on fraud charges.

DeFede was fired for recording his telephone conversations with Teele just before the shooting without the politician's permission.

The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald are separate newspapers but share a building and are both published by The Miami Herald Media Co. El Nuevo Herald is one of the nation's largest Spanish-language newspapers.

Memphis black radio pioneer whose station helped launch B.B. King's career dead at 91

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - John R. Pepper II, co-founder of the first nationwide radio station with programming targeting a black audience, has died. He was 91.

Pepper died Monday at St. Francis Hospital after an extended illness, according to Forest Hill Midtown Funeral Home, where services were held Friday.

Still one of Memphis' top stations, WDIA-AM was the first in the South with an all-black on-air staff. Clear Channel Broadcasting Inc. now owns the station, which reaches five states.

WDIA, which Pepper founded with Bert Ferguson in the 1940s, helped launch the careers of B.B. King and Isaac Hayes, among others, and eased the way for blacks throughout the country to break into broadcasting.

Hayes was a member of the station's "teen-town singers," and King, whose real name is Riley King, picked up his stage name while working as a WDIA disc jockey from 1949 to 1955. He was known then as the "Beale Street Blues Boy" and later as simply "B.B."

Pepper also founded what later became Pepper Tanner Advertising Agency.

Pepper is survived by his daughter, Dianne Gilliland of Memphis; two sons, Sam Pepper of Anchorage, Alaska, and John R. Pepper III of Huntingdon, Tenn.; and a granddaughter.

On the Net:

WDIA: http://www.am1070wdia.com

Man stabbed in brawl over bathroom hygiene at Texas tavern, police say; 1 arrested

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - A bloody brawl erupted outside a tavern after one customer thought another failed to wash his hands after using the bathroom, police said.

One man was hospitalized with stab wounds. Another was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

According to a police report, the fight broke out Thursday after Eric Jennings Kisiah, 27, became upset about a customer's apparent hygiene failure at the Tumbleweeds Sports Bar.

Witnesses told police Kisiah confronted the customer and two of his friends, calling them names, telling them they were dirty and threatening to "slash their throats."

Kisiah then hid near a shrub outside the bar and charged the group as they left, the police report said.

One of the men, 25-year-old Morgan Jackson, was stabbed four times, police said. He was listed in good condition after surgery.

Kisiah was jailed in lieu of $20,000 bail. Mansfield Jail officials declined to let a reporter speak with Kisiah or say whether he had an attorney.

A call to the bar Friday went unanswered.

DNA tests prompt review of 1992 Ill. rape conviction; analyst tied to other problem cases

CHICAGO (AP) - Authorities are reviewing the conviction of a man imprisoned for a 1992 rape after he was cleared by DNA tests that the original lab analyst refused to conduct.

Marlon Pendleton's lawyers received the results of the new tests Wednesday and filed a motion seeking to vacate his conviction. Prosecutors were reviewing the case and Pendleton's conviction in another rape, said John Gorman, spokesman for State's Attorney Richard Devine.

A hearing was set for next Thursday.

"It was no surprise to me," Pendleton, 49, told the Chicago Tribune on Thursday in an interview at the Dixon Correctional Center. "I always knew I was innocent."

Pendleton demanded DNA testing after his arrest, but police lab analyst Pamela Fish said there wasn't enough genetic material to test the evidence. Pendleton was convicted based on the victim's identification.

The expert who conducted the new tests, Brian Wraxall of Serological Research Institute, said Wednesday he was surprised at Fish's report "because I found a reasonable amount of DNA."

Fish's work has been challenged in the past, most notably in the cases of four men later cleared by DNA evidence of the 1986 rape and murder of medical student Lori Roscetti.

In that case, Fish - who no longer works for the police department - testified that semen found on Roscetti could have belonged to three of the defendants. But a DNA expert later examined Fish's notes and said they showed none of the four men had a blood type matching the samples.

Efforts by the newspaper to reach Fish were unsuccessful. A telephone message left by The Associated Press late Thursday at a number listed under that name was not immediately returned.

Search for brothers, ages 4 and 2, enters third day at northern Minnesota reservation

RED LAKE, Minn. - Dozens of trained searchers were taking to woods, lakes and air Friday to hunt for two young brothers who disappeared from an American Indian reservation two days earlier.

The FBI offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Tristan Anthony White, 4, and Avery Lee Stately, 2.

The boys were reported missing Wednesday from the Walking Shield area of the remote, heavily wooded Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, the FBI said.

Their parents said they had been playing outside their home before they disappeared, Tribal Chairman Floyd "Buck" Jourdain Jr. said.

"They were out there one minute, and (then) they didn't hear them or see them," Jourdain said.

FBI spokesman Paul McCabe said it was too soon to tell if the boys wandered away or if a crime had been committed. "At this point, there's nothing to indicate either way," he said.

Temperatures, which fell to 25 degrees overnight, were expected to reach the mid-40s on Friday.

Since the boys disappeared, at least 300 volunteers have combed the forest on foot, horseback and four-wheelers. Small planes were to search overhead Friday, and a sheriff's dive team was planning to check lakes, although two days of ground searching had found no telltale breaks in the ice where the boys may have slipped in, McCabe said.

"The response from the Red Lake nation has been overwhelming," McCabe said.

Many volunteers put aside holiday plans to help Thursday.

"It's not been a very joyous Thanksgiving here," Jourdain said.

The disappearance came less than two years after 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather and grandfather's girlfriend on the reservation March 21, 2005, then went to the high school and killed seven more people, including a teacher and a security guard, before killing himself.

Police: Gunman, hostage die in 23-hour standoff at Chicago apartment building

CHICAGO (AP) - A gunman who took his neighbor hostage for 23 hours over Thanksgiving ended the standoff by killing the woman and himself early Friday, police said.

The 22-year-old victim and 21-year-old Lance Johnson were the only people found in the apartment on the city's South Side, despite reports from Johnson and the victim that a second hostage was inside, 1st Deputy Superintendent Dana Starks said.

"At no time did the Chicago Police Department fire a weapon," Starks said.

Johnson's sister pleaded with him to cooperate with authorities Thursday afternoon. Later, frustrated relatives and neighbors began shouting at police to do more to end the standoff.

Police SWAT team members entered the apartment just after 1 a.m. Friday after officers heard a shot fired, Starks said.

Johnson and the hostage were pronounced dead at a hospital. Police have not released the victim's identity.

Relatives identified her as Tasha Cooks, 22, a nursing home worker.

"We've just been crying all day," Donzell McKinzie, Cooks' 23-year-old brother, said after the shooting.

Cooks used the apartment's phone to call her great-grandmother earlier in the day, family members said. Around 8 p.m., she told them she was inside and beating beaten.

"That was the last time I heard … her and she said she didn't want to talk anymore," McKinzie said.

Resident finds 22 pounds of pot in used car

EUNICE, N.M. (AP) - A New Mexico resident discovered an unadvertised option in a used car he recently purchased: a supply of marijuana.

The owner found the drugs and contacted police, who recovered 20 bricks - 22 pounds - of marijuana.

The weed, valued at $28,000, was stored under the back seat, police said.

The man told authorities he bought the vehicle in Hobbs. Lea County Drug Task Force Cmdr. Allyn Pennington said an investigation was under way and declined to speculate about why the drugs may have been inside the vehicle.

Charred cat in roasting pan with rice, vegetables, left at Utah car dealership

ODGEN, Utah (AP) - A car dealer found a charred cat in a pan of rice and vegetables outside of his business, authorities said.

The cat was found Wednesday outside Roy's Cars and RVs in Ogden, about 31 miles north of Salt Lake City.

"There were green bell peppers and sliced onions all on a bed of rice," said Ogden Police Lt. David Tarran. "It looked just like the cat had been cooked."

Police did not know whether it was a prank or directed at someone at the car dealership. Police are also trying to determine if the cat was alive or dead before the mutilation. That will determine if charges can be pursued.

"I can't even begin to understand who would do such a thing and why," Tarran said.

Panda poop products a hot seller at zoo

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AP) - There's the Panda Express fast-food chain. Jing Jing, a mascot for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The forthcoming animated movie, "Kung Fu Panda." Even a Mexican rock band named after the cuddly bear.

Not to be outdone, Thailand has come up with another, seemingly unlikely way to capitalize on this globally loved, bamboo-munching animal: panda poop.

When keepers of the country's panda couple - Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui - got tired of disposing the 55 pounds of feces daily produced by the duo, Prasertsak Buntragulpoontawee came up with the idea of turning it all into notebooks, fans, bookmarks and key chains.

"At first the Chinese were very skeptical," says the head of Chiang Mai Zoo's panda unit, referring to the proprietary attitude China takes toward its iconic animal.

But the multicolored paper products have proved hot selling-items at the zoo, with the $8,200 earned to date helping balance the accounts of panda keeping.

The Thai government pays $250,000 a year to China's Wulong Panda Research Institute to rent the pandas, who, depending on the weather, reside in either a $1 million air-conditioned cage or an extensive, fan-cooled outdoor enclosure ringed by a mini-replica of China's Great Wall.

Panda poop paper production involves a daylong process of cleaning the feces, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun. Experimentation continues on how to reduce the chemicals now used.

"We tried selling it on markets outside but so far with not so much success," Prasertsak says. "But in the zoo, when people see real pandas and then their product, they're excited and buy."

Animal control offficer adopts 300 cats

HIGH SPRINGS, Fla. - Cats can be found everywhere on Steve and Pennie Lefkowitz's property: perched on barrels, under bushes, hiding in doghouses and rubbing against the backyard fence.

The couple have turned their wooded property just off U.S. 441 into the Haven Acres Cat Sanctuary. It's home to about 300 felines.

Pennie Lefkowitz, an animal control officer, began taking in foster cats about three years ago after she became concerned about the number of cats being euthanized in Alachua County.

"It was rather innocent to begin with," Steve Lefkowitz told The Gainesville Sun. "We took in foster cats, and adopted some more cats. Now, we have people dropping off their unwanted cats in our driveway."

He said while many of their cats are poor candidates for adoption because of behavior problems or health issues, other felines at the sanctuary would make great pets. The couple are trying to increase adoptions through Web sites such as petfinder.com.

County Zoning Administrator Benny Beckham said the Lefkowitzes have been cited for a code violation for having more than 150 cats in a rescue facility, but the couple are applying for a special exception.

Hong Kong health officials promote cardboard 'eco-coffins'

HONG KONG - They're presentable, environmentally friendly and burn faster: cardboard "eco-coffins" may just be the solution to long queues at Hong Kong's busy crematoriums, officials say.

Health officials want to introduce the green coffins - made of corrugated cardboard and said to speed up the cremation process from 2.5 hours to an hour - to alleviate traffic at crematoriums, the government said Tuesday.

"With less time required for each session, we can arrange more sessions per day to cut queuing time for cremation," permanent secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Carrie Yau said in a statement. "That in turn will help ease the demand on our public mortuary."

Cremating the dead is more common and affordable than burials in land-scarce Hong Kong. The government said it has six crematoria that provide 34,400 cremation sessions a year - about 94 sessions every day - but families of the dead often have to wait more than 10 days until they are assigned a slot.

Although the cardboard coffins are more efficient and are said to produce less toxic gas during combustion, they aren't likely to be popular in Hong Kong, where skimping on the traditional Chinese rituals of sending the dead away is seen as a sign of disrespect.

But Hong Kongers should try to accept the advantages of the coffins, said to be gaining popularity in Japan and Europe, Yau said.

"The eco-coffin coincides with the Asian philosophy of integration between man and nature," Yau said. "Due respect is given to the deceased, regardless of a simple or magnificent coffin."

Civil rights activist calls for federal investigation into police shooting of elderly woman

ATLANTA (AP) - A civil rights activist representing the family of an elderly woman killed in a gunfight with police is calling for a federal investigation into her death.

The Rev. Markel Hutchins will go to Washington on Monday to deliver a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting that the Department of Justice and FBI review the shootout, Hutchins said in a news release Thursday.

Kathryn Johnston, who police said was 92, was killed Tuesday evening by narcotics agents. Authorities said the agents got a search warrant for her home after buying drugs from a man there that afternoon. Police said the plainclothes agents identified themselves, but when they knocked down Johnston's door, she opened fire and injured three of the officers.

All are expected to recover.

"This horrific incident has all the signs of an egregious violation of Ms. Johnston's civil and human rights at worst and police officers using poor judgment and unnecessary force at best," Hutchins said.

Johnston's neighbors and relatives have called the raid a case of mistaken identity. Her niece said there were no drugs in the home.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said his office has launched its own investigation, but said a preliminary review of the case shows the officers had a legal right to search the home.