BOULDER, Colo. - The writings are the stuff of love letters: unrequited obsession, reaching beyond the grave, from a man who pledges all to someone he can never have.

They were written to a dead 6-year-old girl by a teacher named John Mark Karr, who also claims he killed the child, JonBenet Ramsey, in her parents' home 10 years ago. And now anything he's ever written is headline fodder.

Boulder prosecutors are in contact with a former classmate of Karr's because a yearbook signed by him more than 20 years ago may explain why a ransom note in the Ramsey home was signed "S.B.T.C.", the Rocky Mountain News reported Friday.

In the 1982 yearbook, Karr ended his missive with the line: "Though, deep in the future, maybe I shall be the conqueror and live in multiple peace." Investigators wonder if "S.B.T.C" means "shall be the conqueror."

The newspaper also published excerpts of the worshipful e-mails Karr sent to University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey, who produced several documentaries on the Ramsey case.

"JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you," according to an e-mail Karr sent on Dec. 23, 2005, just before the anniversary of her death. "I pray that you can hear my voice calling out to you from my darkness - this darkness that now separates us."

"Sometimes little girls are closer to me than with their parents or any other person in their lives. When I refer to myself as JonBenet's Closest, maybe now you understand," he wrote in another message.

Police asked JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, if she would meet with Karr. The mother was willing, but she died from ovarian cancer in June before investigators went any further, family attorney Lin Wood said.

And she never saw Karr's words because his messages were secretly being intercepted by authorities. "He thought that he was corresponding with Patsy, but he wasn't," Wood told The Associated Press.

Karr, 41, is in a Thailand jail awaiting deportation to face U.S. charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault. He told reporters he was with JonBenet when she died in the basement of her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996 but her death was "an accident."

Karr is scheduled to fly to the United States on Sunday, a police official said Saturday.

"The tickets for John Mark Karr's departure are ready," Thailand's immigration police chief, Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, told reporters. "He is leaving for the United States on Sunday evening."

A U.S. Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, could not confirm Karr's departure date, saying that authorities were working through legal paperwork to expedite his deportation.

On Friday, Suwat recanted details he gave of Karr's confession - details that raised suspicions that Karr was lying to gain entry to a sensational killing that fascinated him.

Suwat initially said Karr confessed to sexually assaulting the girl and giving her drugs. But her autopsy showed no signs of drugs. He also told reporters that Karr had claimed to have picked up JonBenet at school, though her death came during the holiday break.

On Friday, Suwat confirmed to the AP his account of the sexual assault. But asked if Karr gave the girl drugs, Suwat said the suspect described the encounter as "a blur." Suwat said the part about JonBenet being picked from school was based on his recollection of watching a documentary about the case.

Other Karr claims drew scrutiny Friday: Prison guards searched the death row cell of Polly Klaas' killer after learning he may have corresponded with Karr. No letters were found.

But a Northern California woman exchanged e-mails and recorded hours of phone conversations with Karr in which he described his fascination with JonBenet's and Polly's slayings, according to published reports.

Wendy Hutchens, 49, of Roseville, Calif., told police about her 2001 conversations with Karr weeks before the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office arrested him on five misdemeanor child pornography charges, The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa reported Friday in its online edition.

There is no public piece of evidence tying Karr, a divorced father of three, to Colorado. Eric Yoder, an investigator for the Colorado Department of Education, said Karr was never licensed to teach in the state and there is no record of him applying for a teaching job.

In Washington, federal officials said they want to question Karr about his writings and confessions, including an e-mail from Karr claiming he was under investigation in four states for child murder and molestation.

"There is no four-state federal case" in which Karr is wanted or even suspected, said a Washington official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is being handled by local prosecutors in Colorado.

Tracey, the professor, refused to discuss the e-mails he received from Karr.

The Ramseys' attorney suggested authorities may have more against Karr than his confession. "There have been e-mail confessions in the case before," Wood said. "John Ramsey has received e-mail confessions in the past and nobody was arrested."

Patsy Ramsey's sister said the family would wait and watch.

"We are optimistic, but it's wait-and-see," said Pamela Paugh from her home in Roswell, Ga. "We've been patient for nine and a half years, what's a few more months?"

- Associated Press writers Harry R. Weber in Atlanta, Matt Apuzzo in Washington, Doug Gross in Roswell, Ga., and Margie Mason in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Dying mother of JonBenet almost met with Karr

BOULDER, Colo. -- Only weeks before she died, police asked JonBenet Ramsey's mother if she would meet with the man now suspected in her daughter's slaying -- a schoolteacher whose worshipful notes described an obsession with a 6-year-old beauty queen he called "my love, my life." - Patsy Ramsey was willing to meet with John Mark Karr but she died from ovarian cancer in June before investigators went any further, family attorney Lin Wood said Friday. And she never saw the words Karr believed she was reading because his messages were secretly being intercepted by authorities.

"He thought that he was corresponding with Patsy, but he wasn't," Wood said. Police in Roswell, Ga., where Ramsey spent the last days of her life, declined to say if they conducted the correspondence ruse.

Karr, 41, is in a Thailand jail awaiting deportation to face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault. He told reporters he was with JonBenet when she died in the basement of her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996, but that her death was an accident.

He told The Associated Press this week that he thought Patsy Ramsey had read his letters in which he "conveyed to her many things, among them that I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet."

Friday, a Thai official backed off other details he gave of Karr's story -- details that raised suspicions about whether Karr was really involved or just a wannabe trying to insert himself into a high-profile case.

Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul of the Thai immigration police initially quoted Karr as saying he had sexually assaulted the girl and given her drugs, even though the autopsy showed no drugs in the girl's body. He also told reporters before a news conference that Karr had claimed to have picked up JonBenet at her school, though her death came during the holiday break.

On Friday, Suwat confirmed to the AP his account of the sexual assault. But asked if Karr gave the girl drugs, Suwat said the suspect described the encounter with JonBenet Ramsey as "a blur."

"It may have been drugs, or it may have been something else because (Karr said) it was a blur, blur," Suwat said.

Suwat also said his statement about the girl being picked from school was based on a documentary he had seen and not the interrogation.

Other of Karr's writings also drew scrutiny Friday.

Prison guards searched the death row cell of Polly Klaas' killer after learning he may have corresponded with the suspect. No letters were found.

The Rocky Mountain News reported that Boulder prosecutors were in contact with a former classmate of Karr's because a yearbook signed by him more than 20 years ago may reveal why the ransom note left for the Ramseys was signed "S.B.T.C."

In the 1982 yearbook, Karr ended his missive with the line, "Though, deep in the future, maybe I shall be the conqueror and live in multiple peace," raising the question of whether S.B.T.C means "shall be the conqueror."

The newspaper also published excerpts of e-mails that Karr sent to University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey, who had produced several documentaries on the Ramsey case.

"JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you," according to an e-mail Karr sent on Dec. 23, 2005, just before the anniversary of her death. "I pray that you can hear my voice calling out to you from my darkness -- this darkness that now separates us."

The e-mail asked Tracey to visit Ramsey's former home in Boulder and read aloud the ode he called "JonBenet, My Love."

"Sometimes little girls are closer to me than with their parents or any other person in their lives. When I refer to myself as JonBenet's Closest, maybe now you understand," he wrote in an another message.

Karr, a divorced father of three who was once detained on charges of possessing child pornography, had also once lived in the Atlanta suburbs where the Ramsey family lived before moving to Boulder.

There is no known piece of evidence tying Karr to Colorado. Eric Yoder, an investigator for the Colorado Department of Education, said Karr was never licensed to teach in the state and there is no record of him applying for a teaching job.

The correspondence between Karr and Tracey was voluminous. In other e-mails, Karr said he was under federal investigation for "child murder and child molestation" in four states.

In Washington, federal law enforcement officials said Karr's comments since his arrest have piqued their interest and they want to question him. Regarding Kerr's purported claims in e-mails that he was under federal investigation for child murder and molestation, one law enforcement official said "there is no four-state federal case" in which Karr is wanted or even suspected. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is being handled by local prosecutors in Colorado.

In another e-mail, the newspaper reported, Karr said he sympathized with Michael Jackson, who has been accused of molesting young boys.

"I will tell you that I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has," Karr wrote.

"I can relate very well to children and the way they think and feel," one Karr e-mail said. "I think you are asking if I am much a 'Peter Pan.' In many ways, the answer is yes. In other ways, I suppose it is no because I am trapped in a world that does not understand."

Tracey refused to discuss the e-mails with reporters on Thursday and declined comment for the newspaper story. Wood, the Ramsey family attorney, suggested that authorities may have something more against Karr.

"There have been e-mail confessions in the case before," Wood said. "John Ramsey has received e-mail confessions in the past and nobody was arrested."

Patsy Ramsey's sister said her family was cautious, yet hopeful, about the arrest.

"We are optimistic, but it's wait-and-see," Pamela Paugh said. "We've been patient for nine and a half years, what's a few more months?"

- Associated Press writers Harry R. Weber in Atlanta, Matt Apuzzo in Washington, Doug Gross in Roswell, Ga., and Margie Mason in Bangkok contributed to this report.

JonBenet suspect 'articulate, polite,' but fired for being too strict, official says

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The American suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey killing was articulate and polite but was dismissed as an English teacher at a prestigious Bangkok school in June for being too strict, a school official said Friday.

John Mark Karr, 41, remained under detention in an immigration police jail Friday, a day after his stunning claim that he was with the 6-year-old beauty queen when she was killed in Boulder, Colo., in 1996.

He is to be transferred to the U.S. to face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault.

Karr worked only two weeks before he was fired from his job as an English teacher in the elementary school at Bangkok Christian College, said Banchong Chompowong, assistant director of the school's English immersion program.

"He was qualified to be a teacher. He had a diploma and has experience in teaching in Bangkok for some time," said Banchong.

He said Karr was so strict with his class of first-graders that parents had complained to the all-boys school, which is considered among the best in the city.

But Banchong said Karr was clean-cut, polite, articulate, did well in his interview and had a resume detailing experience in countries from the U.S. to Japan, along with other schools in Bangkok.

"John Karr came to us with a good resume and with credentials, but then we allowed him a trial (period) with students, we found he was too strict," Banchong said.

He gave some children "time outs," where he forced students to sit quietly and not participate with other classmates.

He taught only one class for the first two weeks of June right after the school year began. The school, founded in 1852 by American Presbyterian missionaries, has a total enrollment of 5,500 students in grades 1 through 12. About 100 native English-speaking teachers work at the school, which has a high teacher turnover rate.

"He's just a nice person - a nice man," Banchong said of his first impression of Karr. "And he takes his work seriously."

Banchong said Karr also had taught at St. Joseph's Convent, another prestigious elementary and secondary Thai school. Officials there refused to talk to reporters.

A Thai police official and the Boulder district attorney also said Karr had started a teaching job this week, but the school was not identified.

Karr also taught for two months in early 2002 at I&S Language School in Seoul, South Korea, said Kim Sun-tae, an official at the Seoul Dongbu District Office of Education. People at the school declined to comment.

In Taiwan, the National Police Administration said Friday that Karr entered the country in August 2005 and left two months later. The NPA didn't know whether Karr taught during his stay and had no indication he engaged in any criminal behavior.

Karr said Thursday that he was with JonBenet when she died and that he wasn't innocent in the case, but questions have been raised about some of his claims.

Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy refused to say whether authorities have evidence linking Karr to JonBenet's death at her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996.

"We should all heed the poignant advice of John Ramsey," said Lacy, quoting the girl's father. "Do not jump to conclusions, do not rush to judgment, do not speculate. Let the justice system take its course."

Timeline of John Mark Karr between 1996 and 2006

John Mark Karr, the suspect in the 1996 death of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, is believed to have traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia in recent years: - 2006

May: University of Colorado Professor Michael Tracey, who had been corresponding with Karr about the case for four years, contacted the Boulder, Colo., district attorney about their e-mail exchanges.

June 6: Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of Thailand's immigration police, said Karr arrived in Bangkok from Penang, Malaysia, to look for a teaching job. Karr had been in Thailand five times over the previous two years.

June: Karr worked at the elementary school at Bangkok Christian College, but was fired after two weeks for being too strict, according to Banchong Chompowong, assistant director of the school's English immersion program.

Aug. 11: Suwat said U.S. authorities informed Thai police that an arrest warrant had been issued for Karr on charges of premeditated murder.

Aug. 15: Karr began teaching second grade in an international school in Bangkok, according to the district attorney in Boulder.

Aug. 16: Arrest warrant sent to Thai police and Karr taken into custody.

Aug. 17: Karr told reporters in Bangkok, Thailand, that he was "with JonBenet when she died" and that "her death was an accident."

2005

October: Karr left Honduras after teaching at a small primary school for eight months in the town of La Esperanza. Renan Marquez, who worked at the school, said Karr taught second grade, and left because he had a contract with another school. Marquez told The Associated Press that Karr was always "reserved, shy, responsible, organized and punctual."

2004

Aug. 3: John Karr left Costa Rica, crossing the border into Nicaragua by land. Costa Rican authorities said they have no record of him entering the country and no other evidence of his stay. A teacher at Pro Language, a school that teaches English to Costa Rican executives, said he worked with Karr and rented him a room.

2002-2003

The JobRTeacher.com resume in Karr's name said he was a private English teacher and caregiver in Germany and the Netherlands, apparently for three families with young children. It listed Stuttgart and Munich as cities he has visited. Public prosecutors in both cities said they have no record of any investigation involving Karr. The authenticity of the resume could not be confirmed.

2002

April: California Commission on Teacher Credentialing suspended Karr's certification. No specific reason was given, but automatic suspensions are authorized when a complaint, information or indictment is filed in court alleging the teacher has committed an offense specified in the Education Code.

2001-2002

Karr claimed he taught English to children aged 6-12 in Seoul, South Korea, and volunteered as an English teacher in Heemstede, Netherlands, a resume posted on an English-teaching institution Web site said. The Web site took down the posting after an Associated Press reporter called. South Korean immigration officials have declined to comment. The same claim was made on the resume posted on Job4Teacher.com; its authenticity could not be confirmed.

2001

January-March: Karr worked in four different school districts throughout Sonoma County, Calif., between January and March 2001.

April 13: Karr was arrested on five misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography, the Sonoma County sheriff's office said.

April 17: Karr pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to court documents.

April: The Sonoma County School District where Karr sometimes substitute-taught received a letter from the county superintendent of education to say Karr had been taken off the list of acceptable substitutes, after the Sonoma sheriff's office notified school officials he had been arrested.

April 19: Karr's wife filed for divorce.

Oct. 5: After a series of court hearings, Karr was released from jail, but was ordered to report to a probation officer and avoid child pornography, children and places where children congregate, such as schools, beaches and parks. The court records in the case were sealed.

November: A judge issued a restraining order, compelling Karr to stay 100 yards away from his wife and three children for three years.

December: A warrant was issued for Karr's arrest after authorities said he violated the terms of his supervised release.

2000

Summer 2000: Karr moved his family to Petaluma, Calif.

John Karr received a bachelor of science degree in liberal arts from Regents College, now Excelsior College, in 2000, spokesman Bill Stewart said.

1996-2001

A resume in Karr's name at Job4Teacher.com said he taught a variety of subjects at "some of the most prestigious schools in the United States" in addition to doing private tutoring. The resume says he has been to Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities, though no dates or schools are listed. The authenticity of the resume could not be confirmed.

1996-1999

Karr said he served as a substitute teacher at Winfield Elementary in Winfield, Ala.

1998

Karr said he was a computer instructor at Bevill College in Hamilton, Ala.

1996-1998

At Bevill State Community College in Hamilton, records show Karr was a student from the fall of 1996 to the winter of 1998. During that time he also ran a used car business, according to Marion County Probate Judge Annette Bozeman, who often saw Karr in her office working on car titles.

Fall 1996: Karr is hired as a substitute teacher at the high school he attended, Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ala. He worked there until school officials received complaints that he was saying things "that didn't need to be said in an elementary class," according to the district's superintendent, Bravell Jackson.

Associated Press Writer Sarah DiLorenzo and Jennifer Farrar in AP's News Research Center in New York compiled this report.

Cell of Polly Klaas' killer searched for JonBenet link

SAN QUENTIN (AP) -- Prison guards searched the death row cell of Polly Klaas' killer after learning he may have corresponded with the suspect in the decade-old slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, authorities said Friday.

Guards at San Quentin State Prison searched Richard Allen Davis' cell Thursday, but no letters were found from John Mark Karr, said Lt. Eric Messick.

A news conference originally scheduled to discuss the search was canceled.

Davis, 52, was sentenced to death for the 1993 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas. The girl was from Petaluma, where JonBenet suspect Karr lived from 2000 to 2001, when he was charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography.

Officials decided to search Davis' cell after learning that Karr told detectives in 2001 that he had a letter from Davis and was researching a book on him.

"Our reasoning was that if there was evidence of them having this relationship, then it might shed some light on things -- it wasn't a far reach," he said. "But I don't think we've found anything so far suggesting there was a nexus between Davis, Karr and JonBenet Ramsey. Obviously Richard Allen Davis was in prison at that time."

Calls to Davis' lawyers Friday were not immediately returned.

Karr, 41, told authorities he drugged and sexually assaulted JonBenet, the child beauty queen who was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's Colorado home on Dec. 26, 1996. Karr said he killed the 6-year-old girl accidentally.

During questioning by police in 2001, Karr also said he had a copy of Klaas' death certificate.

Wyoming wildfire now half contained; some evacuations lifted

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) -- Evacuation orders for some Wyoming residents were lifted Friday as calm, cooler weather and unusually high humidity helped firefighters battling a wildfire south of Casper.

State Forester Bill Crapser said people were allowed to return to 60 homes. However, around 300 homes remained evacuated.

As of Friday morning, firefighters had etched a fire barrier around half of the wildfire, which has blackened upward of 12,000 acres, or more than 18 square miles. With the favorable weather, officials hoped to have 80 percent containment by nightfall.

"It's a great day for fighting fire," Crapser said. "Visibility is not real good for air operations right now because it's overcast, but that's supposed to lift in a little bit."

Humidity was up from 10 percent earlier in the week to 50 percent Friday. The air had stilled following gusts Thursday up to 50 mph.

Lighting sparked the fire Monday and it quickly spread over Casper Mountain, prompting evacuations Tuesday and Wednesday. Four cabins burned.

Crapser said firefighters had been predicting Aug. 31 for full containment but the favorable weather would likely move that date up.

In Utah, a firefighter died Thursday while battling a 250-acre fire about 130 miles south of Salt Lake City. Spencer Koyle, 33, was a 15-year veteran of fighting wildland fires. He was one of 40 firefighters battling the Devil's Den fire, burning in pinon, juniper and brush.

Other firefighters were pulled off the mountain after the death, officials said. There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

In Nevada, firefighters were mopping up four big fires and shifting resources to another that has scorched more than 100,000 acres, or 167 square miles.

The Gopher and Sugarloaf fires were both 95 percent contained Friday, according to the Elko Interagency Dispatch Center. Those fires have burned roughly 32,600 acres and 5,400 acres respectively, or 59 square miles combined.

Fire officials did not estimate when the nearby 107,000-acre Charleston fire will be contained, though they say they are making progress.

On the Net:

National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov/

Experts warn Ecuador volcano poised for new explosion

BANOS, Ecuador (AP) - Rescuers searched the ash-coated slopes of a volcano Friday for 30 missing people after a devastating eruption sent fiery rock and vapor onto Andean villages, forcing tens of thousands to flee. Though eerily calm, Tungurahua appeared poised to erupt again.

At least one person was killed and dozens suffered injuries, mainly burns, during the eruption Thursday.

Ecuador's Geophysics Institute urged residents and tourists who may be tempted to witness the spectacle to stay away from the 16,575-foot Tungurahua volcano in the nation's central Andes.

"There is more potential for it to do very big things. We see that there is a fault in the volcano and it is very unstable," institute head Hugo Yepes said. "There is great activity inside."

The volcano is now quiet, but geology professor Theofilos Toulkeridis, of Quito's San Francisco University, warned: "It is not good news that the volcano is calm. That is not a good sign."

If Tungurahua remained plugged up "at the upper part of the chimney" it would start to "accumulate gas and magma," he told The Associated Press. "The more time that passes with it capped, the worse it is."

Volcanic ash rained down about 140 miles west of Tungurahua, which exploded before dawn Thursday and smothered its lush green slopes in a dull gray blanket of ash. Trees were singed bare by fiery volcanic flows.

Authorities had ordered the evacuation of a dozen hamlets on the volcano's slopes. Ecuador's Civil Defense said about 4,500 people were able to escape the rivers of fire - a horrific sight to villagers in the middle of the frigid Andean night. A dozen people were hospitalized Friday for injuries and burns.

It was the 14th time Tungurahua has sent hot lava and ash onto villages on its flanks since its first recorded eruption in the Spanish colonial era in 1534. After remaining dormant for eight decades, Tungurahua rumbled back to life in 1999 and has been active ever since.

Carlos Puente, governor of Chimborazo province, said 30,000 to 40,000 people had inhabited the western slopes, the most damaged of the volcano, before the eruption, but that now "no one is left."

At least a dozen villages on the volcano's western slopes were seriously damaged or destroyed, and televised images showed the tops of electricity poles jutting from the smoldering flow that smothered more than 100 homes in the village of Juibe Grande. Authorities said the village's 600 residents escaped in time.

They were less sure about the many holdouts who refused to answer evacuation orders Wednesday in three hamlets high on the slopes of the volcano, which is some 85 miles south of the capital of Quito.

A doctor said about 50 people from the village of Penipe were treated for burns caused by "lava flows and incandescent rocks that burned them as they tried to flee."

"They were also burned by vapor and the elevated heat in the zone. It was a scene of chaos, a Dantesque situation," Dr. Hernan Ayala told Ecuador's Channel 4 from a medical center in Riobamba, where many of the victims were taken.

Rescuers recovered the body of a 50-year-old man in Penipe who was burned to death when he tried to return to his home to retrieve a television set, Puente said. Officials said at least 30 people were unaccounted for following the eruption.

Hortensia Chicaiza and her husband searched desperately through an ash-covered field for food for her livestock.

"Does God do this in other places or does this only happen here?" she said as she pulled up fistfuls of ashy vegetation.

Pyroclastic flows - superheated material that shoots down the sides of volcanos at up to 190 mph - damaged access roads and blocked three rivers and forced the shutdown of a hydroelectric. Four jungle provinces were without power for hours until energy officials were able to rerouted lines.

Judge sides with Michael Jackson friend in lawsuit

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man who was set ablaze by his father and befriended by Michael Jackson during his recovery reclaimed a condominium Friday that someone posing as the pop star's cousin bilked from him. - A superior court judge signed a default judgment returning the property's title to Dave Dave, formerly known as David Rothenberg, said his attorney, Brian Oxman.

Dave was also awarded $93,000 in damages, according to Oxman, who said he took on the case at Jackson's request.

"This is a case where the most vulnerable was taken advantage of," Oxman said.

Dave, 28, was 6 when his father doused him with kerosene and set him on fire at an Orange County motel room during a custody dispute. Over 90 percent of Rothenberg's body was burned.

Dave alleged in a lawsuit filed in February that Darnello Jackson posed as Michael Jackson's cousin to gain his trust and tricked him into signing over his $335,000 condominium in Inglewood.

The two met in 2003 at Jackson's Neverland Ranch in Los Olivos.

Darnello Jackson did not appear for the hearing or file court papers.

"All I can say now is that there is another side to this story," said Darnello Jackson when contacted by phone, adding that he'd speak out about the case at a later date.

18 Iranians killed in bus crash in Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- A bus carrying Iranian tourists crashed into a truck in eastern Turkey early Friday, killing 18 and injuring 29, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

The crash occurred near Caldiran, a town in the eastern province of Van, near the border with Iran, the agency said.

The bus hit the back of the truck, which was carrying stones, the agency said. The exact cause of the accident was under investigation. The private Dogan news agency quoted one of the injured passengers as saying none of the truck's rear lights was on.

The Iranians were returning from a visit to religious sites in Syria, private NTV television reported.

Paramilitary police, in charge of policing the region, would not comment on the report. No one was available for comment at the local governor's office.

Anatolia said 14 of the passengers were killed instantly, while four others died in hospital. The injured included the truck's driver, the report said.

Each year, thousands of people are killed in traffic accidents on Turkey's roads, many of which consist of just two lanes, are badly lit and poorly patrolled.

Worker trapped waist-deep in tank of chocolate for 2 hours at Wisconsin factory

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) -- It might sound like a chocoholic's dream, but stepping into a vat of viscous chocolate became a two-hour nightmare for a 21-year-old man Friday morning.

Darmin Garcia, an employee of a company that supplies chocolate ingredients, said he was pushing the chocolate down into the vat at Debelis Corp. because it was stuck. But it became loose and he slid into the hopper.

"It was in my hair, in my ears, my mouth, everywhere," said Garcia, who has worked at the company for two years. "I felt like I weighed 900 pounds. I couldn't move."

The chocolate was 110 degrees, hotter than a hot tub, said Capt. Greg Sinnen of the Kenosha Fire Department.

Co-workers, police and firefighters tried to free the man but couldn't get him loose until the chocolate was thinned out with cocoa butter.

"It was pretty thick. It was virtually like quicksand," said police Capt. Randy Berner.

Garcia was treated for minor injuries and released.

After more than two hours in the chocolate, does he still have a taste for it?

"Not so much anymore," Garcia said.

Las Vegas makes it illegal to sleep near public defecation

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- City officials have made it illegal to sleep within 500 feet of urine or feces, but the city attorney says the new law was passed by mistake and won't be enforced.

The new ordinance makes it illegal to "knowingly establish" sleeping quarters near defecation unless that "deposit" is made in an appropriate sanitary facility. It was passed unanimously by the Las Vegas City Council as part of a bill making it a misdemeanor to go to the bathroom in public.

City Attorney Brad Jerbic says the council will consider a revised version of the ordinance that shortens the distance between sleeper and deposits.

"We were reviewing all park rules, including sleeping, camping and a number of other things people associate with parks," Jerbic said Thursday. "The decision, by me, was to take this (provision) out of the defecation urination bill and look at it with respect to park rules in general. It was my mistake that it didn't come out."

The law has been signed by Mayor Oscar Goodman, but Jerbic said law enforcement personnel will be told not to enforce the no sleeping near feces and urine provision. A revised ordinance will appear on the Sept. 6 council agenda, he said.

Homeless and civil rights advocates said the ordinance is another attempt by city officials to target the homeless.

"Seriously, are you kidding me?" asked Lee Rowland, public advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. "I don't know how on earth a police officer would determine whether someone has knowingly set up shop next to" urine or feces.

An ordinance making it illegal to feed homeless people in parks passed July 19 and a lawsuit was filed shortly after by the ACLU saying the ordinance violates civil rights.

City officials say the ordinances are aimed at getting homeless people out of city parks and into city services.

Tar-like spill in Klamath River as tanker truck overturns

HAMBURG (AP) -- Hundreds of gallons of road sealant spilled into the Klamath River after a tanker truck overturned near the Oregon border Friday, authorities said.

Between 500 and 1,000 gallons of chip seal, a tar-like substance used to repair and finish road surfaces, leaked into the river near Hamburg, a small town 50 miles west of Yreka in Siskiyou County, said Anna Counihan, a California Highway Patrol dispatcher.

The oily liquid flowed from a hole punctured in the tanker when the truck crashed and rolled onto its side on Highway 96 next to the river, Counihan said. The truck did not fall into the river. The driver, who was headed to a work site near Happy Camp, suffered minor injuries.

The Klamath River west of Hamburg was closed to recreation, and state and county officials told residents to avoid swimming, boating or fishing in the river.

"Don't go out there," Counihan said. "Definitely don't drink it."

A hazardous materials team was working to contain and clean up the spilled liquid, which had traveled about eight miles downstream by Friday afternoon, said Michael Mayor, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation.

Work crews pumped the remaining oil out of the tanker to stop the leaking, Mayor said.

Ex-con sentenced to death for killing girlfriend, raping teen

GEORGETOWN, S.C. (AP) -- An ex-con who co-wrote a book about life in prison was sentenced to death Friday for killing his live-in girlfriend and raping a 15-year-old girl.

Stephen Stanko, 38, also was sentenced to 110 years in prison on other charges including criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping and armed robbery.

Stanko was convicted last week of killing 43-year-old Laura Ling and raping the teenager, who sat in the courtroom with her head in her hands and a teddy bear on her lap as the verdict was read.

The killer eluded police for four days in a manhunt that attracted national attention. He was apprehended in Augusta, Ga.

Defense attorney William Diggs had argued Stanko's life should be spared because he has a brain defect and couldn't tell right from wrong. Stanko did not speak during his trial.

Stanko was released from a South Carolina prison in July 2004 after serving more than eight years of a 10-year sentence for kidnapping.

While there, he co-wrote "Living in Prison: A History of the Correctional System," with the help of professors at East Tennessee State University.

Stanko is also accused in the death of a 74-year-old man whose body was found about a day after Ling's death. A trial date has not been scheduled.

Experts warn Ecuador volcano poised for new explosion

BANOS, Ecuador (AP) -- Rescuers searched the ash-coated slopes of a volcano Friday for 30 missing people after a devastating eruption sent fiery rock and vapor onto Andean villages, forcing tens of thousands to flee. Though eerily calm, Tungurahua appeared poised to erupt again.

At least one person was killed and dozens suffered injuries, mainly burns, during the eruption Thursday.

Ecuador's Geophysics Institute urged residents and tourists who may be tempted to witness the spectacle to stay away from the 16,575-foot Tungurahua volcano in the nation's central Andes.

"There is more potential for it to do very big things. We see that there is a fault in the volcano and it is very unstable," institute head Hugo Yepes said. "There is great activity inside."

The volcano is now quiet, but geology professor Theofilos Toulkeridis of Quito's San Francisco University warned: "It is not good news that the volcano is calm. That is not a good sign."

If Tungurahua remained plugged up "at the upper part of the chimney" it would start to "accumulate gas and magma," he said. "The more time that passes with it capped, the worse it is."

Volcanic ash rained down about 140 miles west of Tungurahua, which exploded before dawn Thursday and smothered its lush green slopes in a dull gray blanket of ash. Trees were singed bare by fiery volcanic flows.

Authorities had ordered the evacuation of a dozen hamlets on the volcano's slopes. Ecuador's Civil Defense said about 4,500 people were able to escape the rivers of fire -- a horrific sight to villagers in the middle of the frigid Andean night. A dozen people were hospitalized Friday for injuries and burns.

It was the 14th time Tungurahua has sent hot lava and ash onto villages on its flanks since its first recorded eruption in the Spanish colonial era in 1534. After remaining dormant for eight decades, Tungurahua rumbled back to life in 1999 and has been active ever since.

Carlos Puente, governor of Chimborazo province, said 30,000 to 40,000 people had inhabited the western slopes, the most damaged of the volcano, before the eruption, but that now "no one is left."

At least a dozen villages on the volcano's western slopes were seriously damaged or destroyed, and televised images showed the tops of electricity poles jutting from the smoldering flow that smothered more than 100 homes in the village of Juibe Grande. Authorities said the village's 600 residents escaped in time.

They were less sure about the many holdouts who refused to answer evacuation orders Wednesday in three hamlets high on the slopes of the volcano, which is some 85 miles south of the capital of Quito.

A doctor said about 50 people from the village of Penipe were treated for burns caused by "lava flows and incandescent rocks that burned them as they tried to flee."

"They were also burned by vapor and the elevated heat in the zone. It was a scene of chaos, a Dantesque situation," Dr. Hernan Ayala told Ecuador's Channel 4 from a medical center in Riobamba, where many of the victims were taken.

Rescuers recovered the body of a 50-year-old man in Penipe who was burned to death when he tried to return to his home to retrieve a television set, Puente said. Officials said at least 30 people were unaccounted for following the eruption.

Hortensia Chicaiza and her husband searched desperately through an ash-covered field for food for her livestock.

"Does God do this in other places or does this only happen here?" she said as she pulled up fistfuls of ashy vegetation.

Pyroclastic flows -- superheated material that shoots down the sides of volcanos at up to 190 mph - damaged access roads and blocked three rivers and forced the shutdown of a hydroelectric. Four jungle provinces were without power for hours until energy officials were able to rerouted lines.

Jury weighing Va. execution hears family describe abuse, victim describe brutality

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Relatives of a man who murdered a family of four testified Friday that his childhood was filled with abuse, but jurors deciding whether he should be executed also heard a witness describe being stabbed in his mouth, face and neck in another merciless attack the defendant confessed to.

Ricky Jovan Gray was convicted Thursday of capital murder in the New Year's Day slayings. The victims were found in the basement of their burning home, bound, beaten with a hammer and stabbed, with their throats cut.

Gray's mother, Barbara Moten, wept as she testified that he was beaten repeatedly with a horse strap by his father and was sexually abused by a half brother for years.

"Sorry, Cooley," Moten said, using Gray's nickname, as he looked back at her, crying.

During cross-examination, prosecutor Michael Herring asked Moten if she knew about Gray's crimes.

"I don't want to hear about it -- no!" Moten said, shaking her head and covering her ears.

Killed in the attack were musician Bryan Harvey, 49, his wife, Kathryn, 39, and daughters Stella, 9, and Ruby, 4.

Prosecutors say Gray, 29, and his nephew, Ray Joseph Dandridge, killed the Harveys during a bloody crime spree that included the slaying of a second Richmond family less than a week later.

A police detective from Philadelphia, where the men were arrested Jan. 7, testified Thursday that Gray confessed to those crimes and others, including the November slaying of Gray's wife near Pittsburgh.

Detective Howard Peterman said Gray also confessed to a Dec. 31 slashing assault and robbery in which two knives broke off in the victim, Ryan Carey, 26, of Arlington.

In a soft, shaky voice, Carey testified Friday that he immediately relinquished his wallet and told his assailants, "Whatever you guys need -- take what you need." Despite his compliance, they attacked.

"I could feel the knives going into the bottom of my mouth, the side of my face, then down around my neck," he testified. "I noticed that I was having problems breathing."

The attack left him in a coma for two weeks and in a hospital for two months. Carey lost all use of his right arm and has severe psychological trauma, his father said.

"He's not the same boy," David Carey said.

Jurors were shown the scars on Ryan Carey's neck and deep gouges to his arm. One juror burst into tears at the graphic presentation, and several in the audience sobbed.

Prosecutors also called relatives of the Harveys, who were well known in Richmond. Bryan Harvey was a guitarist and singer for the rock duo House of Freaks, which released five albums between 1987 and 1995, and his wife co-owned a quirky toy and novelty store called World of Mirth.

"I can't look at my kids without … wondering if they're going to be alive at the end of the week," said Kathryn Harvey's half-brother, actor Steven Culp, who played Rex Van De Kamp on "Desperate Housewives." "It's done something to me. It's bottomless, you know? There's no end to it."

Dandridge, 29, has not been charged with killing the Harveys but is scheduled for a Sept. 18 murder trial in the Jan. 6 killings of Percyell Tucker, 55, his wife, Mary Baskerville-Tucker, 47, and her daughter, Ashley Baskerville, 21. Gray told police Baskerville was an accomplice to the Harvey slayings.

Gray told police he was high on PCP the day he killed the Harveys, and relatives testified Friday that he became hooked on drugs as a young teen.

One of his relatives testified that she was sexually abused by the same man who had abused Gray. Herring acknowledged the woman's trauma before asking, "You've not killed anyone, have you?"

"No," she replied.

Teenager in Wichita, Kan., gets perfect scores on ACT, SAT exams

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- A teenager has achieved a rare feat: perfect scores on both the American College Testing exam and the SAT.

Jakub Voboril, 17, a senior at Bishop Carroll High School, learned last month that he had scored a 36 on his ACT, which he took in June. His perfect score, one of only two in Kansas on the June test, came after he scored 32 and 34 on his first two tries.

"Part of me said, 'That's good enough. You can stop there,'" he said. "But I decided to take it one more time to see what happened."

He took the SAT the same week. Those results -- a perfect 2400 -- came in shortly after he got his ACT scores.

Voboril comes from good genes: his two older sisters were high school valedictorians. He hasn't settled on a college or major, but has considered math, philosophy and law, possibly at the University of Notre Dame or Princeton.

He said he didn't have an answer for how he scored so well.

"It's weird, because before I took it, I checked out a couple books from the library. I expected there to be this big secret that all the smart people had that I just had to read.

"But I found out there's not a secret formula. Obviously, you have to pay attention in classes, take classes that are going to teach you what you need to know -- that sort of thing."

No statistics are available on how many students have aced both tests, but it's a safe bet Voboril doesn't have a lot of company.

"Suffice it to say, it's a very, very small number," said Brian O'Reilly, a spokesman for the College Board, which administers the SAT.

Cat sports bling

ALEXANDRIA, Ind. (AP) -- This cool cat has traded in his catnip for some bling.

Sebastian, a 1-year-old Persian with long black hair, sports gold crowns on his two bottom canines, which grew sticking out from his lips in an underbite similar to a bulldog's.

His owner, dentist David Steele, said he gave Sebastian gold crowns to help strengthen the fanged feline's teeth. Steele said he was worried the teeth would break off or become a problem.

"It's possible to work on animals the same way we do humans," he said. "I did it to strengthen (Sebastian's) teeth, but it had an excellent cosmetic result. The cat gets a lot of attention now. Everyone is tickled to death when they see him."

The gold teeth protruding from Sebastian's furry face make him seem a bit menacing, like a hip-hop star's guard cat or a movie villain's pet. The feline didn't seem too happy with his new look at first.

"He's normally around me all the time," Steele said. "After I put the crowns on, he didn't 'speak' to me for two days."

Two weeks ago, veterinarian Larry Owen tranquilized the cat at the Alexandria Animal Hospital about 30 miles northeast of Indianapolis so Steele could do the dentistry work, which took about 15 minutes to complete.

Owen said putting gold crowns on teeth can be done for any pet with a dental problem. Steele said the cost for each gold tooth is about the same as for humans -- about $900.

Chinese Communist Party worried about 'uncouth' image of travelers

BEIJING (AP) -- The Communist Party has a message for Chinese traveling abroad: Don't embarrass your country by spitting, littering or shouting into mobile phones.

The party's Spiritual Civilization Steering Committee launched a campaign Wednesday to reduce the number of Chinese tourists who "appear uncouth," a news report said.

"The behavior of some Chinese travelers is not compatible with the nation's economic strength and its growing international status," the China Daily quoted the committee as saying.

The campaign will last through the end of 2008, when Beijing is due to host the Summer Olympics.

Many Chinese tourists spit, loudly clear their throats, take off their shoes on planes, smoke in public places and shout into their mobile phones, the newspaper said.

Last year, Chinese tourists made 31 million trips abroad and 1.2 billion trips inside the country. The number is expected to skyrocket to 100 million overseas trips by 2020, the China Daily said.

Jesus Christ portrait stolen from high school

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (AP) -- These thieves apparently didn't listen to "Thou shalt not steal."

A portrait of Jesus Christ was taken from Bridgeport High School on Thursday, two days after the Harrison County School Board agreed to fight court efforts to remove it.

An intruder snatched the contentious painting just before 4 a.m. but left behind the gilded frame and backing, Schools Superintendent Carl Friebel said.

"The picture was the only thing stolen, so the deliberate intent was to steal the picture and only the picture," Friebel said.

The painting, which depicts Jesus in sepia tones on a large canvas, hung on the wall outside the principal's office and had been at the school for 37 years.

The Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the West Virginia American Civil Liberties Union sued the school board in June, saying the painting, "Head of Christ," sends the message that the school endorses Christianity as its official religion.

On Tuesday, the school board decided to fight to keep the portrait hanging after an outside group, the Christian Freedom Fund, raised more than $150,000 to pay the board's legal costs.

Eight national groups with expertise in constitutional law have offered legal help to the school board. One of those groups will be selected to lead the defense at trial, which is set for February.

Judge jails cussing cussing defendant

VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) -- A man who cursed in court and gave a judge an obscene gesture was thrown in jail and ordered to write a letter of apology.

Jonathan Wilson, 31, of San Pierre, remained in the Porter County Jail on Wednesday following his outburst, which came after he failed to have a speeding ticket thrown out.

Wilson had faced no more than a fine Tuesday until he reacted with his offensive language and gesture to the ruling by Porter Superior Judge David Chidester. Chidester promptly ordered Wilson jailed and to remain behind bars until he writes a letter of apology.

Chidester said Wilson's letter must convince the judge that Wilson understands why he was found guilty and also that the correct way to challenge a verdict is through an appeal.

Wilson was found guilty of driving 70 mph in a 55 mph zone along Indiana 49 in northern Indiana during the early morning hours of June 2.

Texas art teacher resigns to end fight over nude photos that were posted online

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A high school art teacher who faced termination after students saw her nude photos online has agreed to resign.

Tamara Hoover had been on paid leave since May, when students saw the photos on Flickr.com and showed them to another art teacher at Austin High School. That teacher, who was feuding with Hoover over ceramics equipment, notified administrators, according to sworn affidavits.

The photos were posted by Hoover's partner and depicted her in the shower, getting dressed and doing other routine activities.

Hoover said the district was focusing on eight pictures among hundreds that were posted, and she defended them as art. The school district said the photos were inappropriate and violated the "higher moral standard" expected of teachers.

Hoover, who had been scheduled to argue her case in a termination hearing next week, submitted her letter of resignation Wednesday. Pending school board approval, she will receive several months' salary totaling $14,850 under an agreement with the school district.

She said she had wanted to keep teaching but now will pursue a master's degree and teach at the university level.

"I don't think this is the most ideal outcome," she said.

In a statement released Thursday, the district said it "believes strongly in an individual's right of free expression, but as we all know, such rights are not absolute."

On the Net:

School district: http://www.austinisd.org

Okla. judge sentenced to 4 years in prison for exposing self, used sexual device during trials

BRISTOW, Okla. (AP) -- A former judge convicted of exposing himself while presiding over jury trials and accused of using a sexual device under his robe was sentenced Friday to four years in prison.

Donald Thompson had spent almost 23 years on the bench and had served as a state legislator before retiring from the court in 2004.

At his trial this summer, his former court reporter, Lisa Foster, testified that she saw Thompson expose himself at least 15 times during trial between 2001 and 2003. Prosecutors said he also used a device known as a penis pump during at least four trials in the same period.

Thompson, 59, was convicted last month of four felony courts of indecent exposure for incidents that took place in his Creek County courtroom.

Thompson, a married father of three grown children, testified that the penis pump was given to him as a joke by a longtime hunting and fishing buddy.

"It wasn't something I was hiding," he said.

He said he may have absentmindedly squeezed the pump's handle during court cases but never used it to masturbate.

Foster told authorities that she saw Thompson use the device almost daily during the August 2003 murder trial of a man accused of shaking a toddler to death. A whooshing sound could be heard on Foster's audiotape of the trial. When jurors asked the judge about the sound, Thompson said he hadn't heard it but would listen for it.

Police built a case against the judge after a police officer testifying in a 2003 murder trial saw a piece of plastic tubing disappear under Thompson's robe. During a lunch break, officers took photographs of the pump under the desk.

Investigators later checked the carpet, Thompson's robes and the chair behind the bench and found semen, according to court records.

Carmelia Brossett, a senior probation officer for the state Department of Corrections, said in a presentencing report that Thompson refused to undergo psychosexual testing.

"Thompson's denial of the offense would likely present difficulty, if not inability for treatment providers to provide meaningful and beneficial sex-offender treatment," she said.

The jury recommended a sentence of one year in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count. The jury foreman has said it was the jury's intent that Thompson serve the full sentence.

Judge C. Allen McCall was considering arguments on whether Thompson should be allowed to remain free pending appeal. Thompson was also ordered to pay a $40,000 fine.

Alaska Airlines jet diverted to Seattle after cabin fails to pressurize normally

SEATTLE (AP) -- An Alaska Airlines jetliner was diverted to Seattle after the plane's cabin failed to pressurize normally Friday during a flight from Canada, an airline spokeswoman said.

The Boeing 737 landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where medics treated 10 passengers and three crew members complaining of ear and sinus pain, airline spokeswoman Amanda Tobin Bielawski said.

She initially said they required no other treatment but later said the airline had learned four people were taken to a hospital. She did not have immediate details on their condition.

"There's nothing at this point to suggest that this is anything other than an isolated incident," Bielawski said.

An altitude warning alarm sounded when Flight 690 reached 33,000 feet, indicating a problem with the air pressure inside the cabin, Bielawski said. She said the plane's oxygen masks did not deploy.

The Seattle-based airline brought in another plane which took the 122 passengers the rest of the way to San Francisco. The original flight had taken off from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Earlier this year, Alaska ordered a fleet-wide inspection of its planes' air pressure systems after a series of similar cabin pressure problems. The company said no systemwide problems were found.

N.J. contractor charged with 420-plus counts of child porn, sex crimes while working at homes

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- A self-employed contractor was indicted Friday on hundreds of child sex assault and child pornography counts after authorities said he spent years molesting children and recording them while he worked at their homes.

Clement Bilski Jr., 43, is accused of preying on at least 11 girls and boys, the oldest just 8 years old, between 1998 and 2005.

"The depravity in this case has no boundaries," Monmouth Prosecutor Luis Valentin said.

Working as a carpenter and handyman, Bilski abused the children in their own homes, often while caretakers were elsewhere in the houses, then offered them toys and candy to stay quiet, Valentin said.

He used ropes and handcuffs to detain children, videotaped himself abusing them and showed pornographic photos and videos to at least two of them, the prosecutor said. The suspect also secretly videotaped children "in various states of undress," Valentin said.

Bilski was charged in the grand jury indictment with 74 counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, 30 counts of second-degree aggravated sexual assault and 295 counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child by the manufacture of child pornography. He also faces charges of criminal restraint, weapons possession and endangering the welfare of a child.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the sexual assault charges. Bail was set at $1 million.

Bilski was arrested in April after Maryland State Police reported that a computer traced to Bilski was sharing child pornography over the Internet, Valentin said.

Until the indictment Friday, he had been held in a county jail on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and distribution and possession of child pornography.

Bilski's job allowed him to get into homes where he could watch and abuse children from vantage points unseen by parents and other caregivers, Valentin said.

It was not immediately clear if Bilski had an attorney.

Neighbor Bud Mandeville told The Star-Ledger of Newark that he has known Bilski for 15 years and had considered him to be kind and considerate.

"Never in a million years would I think he would do what he did," he said. "He was a good friend. It's sad. It's terrible what he did to the families and it's terrible what he did to himself."

Shocked fans dismayed at loss of L.A.'s only country music station

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- There is a tear in the beer of country music fans here.

After more than 20 years on the air, the city's only country music station, KZLA-FM, abruptly left the air Thursday and was seamlessly replaced with the rhythmic pop of "Movin' 93.9," which plays artists such as Beyonce, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez.

KZLA's sudden and unannounced demise leaves America's two most populous cities, Los Angeles and New York, without country music stations.

In Los Angeles, longtime country fans and station employees wondered at the logic of ending country radio in their city, which ranks in the top two for album sales and where concerts for big-name country artists repeatedly sell out. The station's last day coincided with opening night of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's "Soul II Soul" concert. All three nights of their tour stop in L.A. were sold out.

"Country is certainly well represented in product sales there and it gets good concert stops," said Victor Sansone, chairman of the board of the Nashville-based Country Music Association. "That station's been country for a barrel of years. When you have that kind of equity, you don't think they're going to flip it. I don't get it."

The transition by Emmis Communications was swift and shocking for listeners, who heard George Strait and Keith Urban in the morning and Pink and the Black Eyed Peas by lunchtime. Even the station's veteran morning crew, including Peter Tilden, didn't know of the format change until just minutes before it happened.

The host of the midmorning show, Shawn Parr, said he was told just after he started his shift that the station would be changing styles. He queued up Keith Urban's "Tonight I Wanna Cry" at 10:18 a.m., which segued into the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" seven minutes later. Then he left the air.

"It's a bitter pill to swallow. The thing I have a hard time with is the listeners. They deserve more than that," said Parr, who has long been the voice of television's Academy of Country Music Awards. "I went to my e-mail 3.5 hours later and I had 2,100 e-mails. My phone has not stopped ringing for 24 hours."

Val Maki, vice president of Emmis Communications' radio division, said the format change was a "better business decision despite what a wonderful station KZLA was."

Maki said KZLA, located close to the ACM offices, ranked 20th among the 80 radio stations in Los Angeles and attracted about 550,000 listeners a week. The new station will target women between 25 and 54, a demographic where KZLA ranked 19th in the market, she said. Emmis has hired legendary Los Angeles disc jockey Rick Dees to run the morning show and he will begin after Labor Day, Maki said.

"This could very well be a market leader," she said of Movin' 93.9. "It looks really good, and based on our early feedback, it sounds good."

For most country fans, however, the switch didn't sit well.

Erik Olson, a 22-year-old barn manager at Circle K Horse Rentals in Glendale, got out of his truck for a few minutes Thursday morning to drop off a horse. When he hopped back in, the radio was blaring Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean."

"I got back in my truck and they weren't there anymore. I called my wife and said, 'What the hell's going on? They've changed their format,'" said Olson, who has listened to KZLA since he was a child. "It looks like I'm going to have to go to satellite radio to get my country, although I don't want to."

L.A. residents can still listen to country on KZLA's streaming Internet or on HD Radio. Some fans who live on the fringes of Los Angeles County may be able to pick up two other country stations, KFRG-FM or KHAY-FM, from their bases in neighboring counties at least 60 miles away. At least two-thirds of the cars in L.A. can receive a signal from KFRG, said operations manager Lee Douglas.

Those stations have received hundreds of calls and e-mails from orphaned KZLA listeners, station managers said.

On the Net:

KZLA-FM: http://www.kzla.com

Emmis Communications: http://www.emmis.com

Rick Dees: http://www.rick.com

Airliner delayed after passengers carry on drinks

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An airliner bound for New York was delayed nearly an hour Friday after the crew discovered some passengers had carried on drinks purchased at the airport, and the pilot requested the plane be rechecked by security screeners.

American Airlines Flight 40 was scheduled to leave for John F. Kennedy International Airport at 11 a.m. and was being boarded when the drinks were discovered.

"The passengers were deplaned at the captain's request," said Nancy Castles, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles International Airport. "The liquids were surrendered or tossed or discarded. They conducted a security check of the plane, and the passengers were allowed to come back."

The flight carrying 150 passengers to New York left at 11:57 a.m., said American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner.

Federal Transportation Safety Administration spokeswoman Jennifer Peppin said the passengers had already passed an airport security checkpoint and were waiting in a secured section of the American Airlines terminal when they purchased the drinks.

Still, she said, new security rules require that even drinks purchased in a secured area must be consumed or discarded before a person gets on a plane.

"We keep a lookout at the gate, but with a lot of people around and with carry-on bags and stuff, they made their way on board," Wagner said.

Utah firefighter dies fighting blaze; investigators en route

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A firefighter who died on the Devil's Den blaze in Fishlake National Forest enjoyed the camaraderie that came with the job and the challenge of what he might find in the canyons and brush of central Utah, a friend said.

"There's a rush when you're dealing with something that Mother Nature throws at you," said Russ Ivie, who works on prescribed fires for the U.S. Forest Service.

"The satisfaction of protecting homes and looking out for safety of other firefighters -- none of us are in this for the money," Ivie said Friday from Richfield.

Spencer Koyle, 33, died Thursday while fighting a 250-acre wildfire about 130 miles south of Salt Lake City in Millard County. The fire began after a lightning strike Tuesday above Oak City.

Koyle lived in Holden, also in Millard County, and was married with three children.

"Spencer was a born leader, and I'm not saying that because he's gone," Ivie said. "Every person who worked under him respected him."

Fresh out of Fillmore High School, Koyle began fighting fires part-time in 1991. He graduated from Utah State University and worked his way up to fire-operations specialist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, supervising 30 firefighters in two federal agencies.

"This is the honest truth: I don't understand how it could have happened to our most experienced firefighter," Ivie said. "It's been a shock to our little fire community."

Investigators were traveling to the area Friday to talk to witnesses, said Davida Carnahan, a Forest Service spokeswoman.

"All I can say is we lost radio contact with him," she said. "The fire was burning in very rugged and steep terrain. Canyons are always a cause for concern."

Firefighters were immediately pulled off the wildfire and the site was temporarily turned over to Utah authorities.

"It was too traumatic," Carnahan said.

On the Net:

http://www.blm.gov/nhp/index.htm

http://www.nifc.gov/

'Blind Faith' killer resentenced to life in prison

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) -- A convicted killer whose case spawned a popular book and TV miniseries -- and whose death sentence was overturned last year -- was sentenced Friday to life in prison and is eligible for parole in eight years.

Robert O. Marshall, once first in line for execution on New Jersey's death row, was resentenced for arranging his wife's murder in a case that inspired the best-selling book and miniseries "Blind Faith."

Marshall, 65, was sentenced to life with no parole for 30 years. He gets credit for the 22 years he already has served, making him eligible for release in 2014.

After a federal appeals court overturned Marshall's death sentence last year, prosecutors decided to drop a 22-year bid to execute him.

The former insurance salesman was convicted in 1986 of hiring Billy Wayne McKinnon and Larry N. Thompson to kill Maria Marshall at a rest stop along the Garden State Parkway. Marshall wanted to collect $1.5 million in life insurance and continue an affair with another woman.

McKinnon, the state's key witness, testified he orchestrated the murder at Marshall's request. The jury that convicted Marshall but acquitted Thompson, who prosecutors alleged was the triggerman. McKinnon and another accomplice, Robert Cumber, served prison time.

Marshall's death sentence was overturned last year by a federal appeals court that said his lawyer did not adequately defend him. Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher determined that the passage of time would have made obtaining a second death sentence difficult and that another appeal would have delayed "just closure" for the family.

Nine men are on death row in New Jersey. The state though has not put anyone to death since 1963 and has a moratorium on executions.

Illegal immigrant suspected of rapes, murders in Mexico

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - A man arrested in the United States for immigration violations is the main suspect in the rapes and killings of eight women whose remains were found five years ago in a trash-strewn lot in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexican authorities say.

Relatives and women right's activists, however, remain skeptical the women's killer has been caught and say some of the women were wrongly identified.

Chihuahua state Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez told the Ciudad Juarez daily newspaper El Diario newspaper that Edgar Alvarez Cruz, who was arrested in Denver, Colorado, is linked to the killings of eight women, ages 15 to 21, whose remains were discovered on November 2001.

Gonzalez didn't respond to repeated requests from The Associated Press for comment Friday.

State prosecutor Maria Teresa Gonzalez, who leads the investigations into the killings of women in the border city of Juarez, said her office did not have a warrant for Alvarez Cruz's arrest.

"We're currently working on getting a warrant," Maria Teresa Gonzalez said.

Ken Deal, chief deputy U.S. Marshal for Colorado, said Alvarez Cruz was arrested Tuesday on immigration violations at the house where he had been living in Denver for at least a month while working at a concrete construction company.

Alvarez Cruz was flown to El Paso, Texas, where Patricia Gonzalez would arrange his extradition sometime next week, Maria Teresa Gonzalez said.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza called Alvarez Cruz's arrest "a major break" in the investigations into the sexually motivated murders of more than 100 young women in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, between 1993 and 2003.

Relatives and women right's activists, however, remain skeptical the women's killer has been caught, given the spotty record of officials who have handled the investigation.

Celia de la Rosa, whose 19-year-old daughter Guadalupe Luna was identified as one of the eight women found in 2001, said she was told last month DNA tests conducted on the body didn't match her daughter.

"How can they say they've found who did it if they don't even know who the girls are?" De la Rosa said.

Shortly after the 2001 grisly discovery, state authorities in Chihuahua, where Juarez is located, announced they had identified the eight women and closed the cases after arresting two bus drivers.

One of the men died while awaiting trial. The other was released from prison last year after a judge overturned his conviction on grounds that the testimony of a key witness was unreliable. Two of the men's defense lawyers were gunned down in Ciudad Juarez in separate incidents.

Both men alleged they had been tortured into making stilted, videotaped "confessions" as state officials came under increasing international pressure to solve the crimes against women.

Josefina Gonzalez was also told by state authorities that her 20-year-old daughter had been found in the empty lot, but two DNA tests later turned out negative.

"I believe I buried my daughter even if the tests were negative," Josefina Gonzalez said.

She said a set of overalls and two of her daughter's IDs found at the crime scene lead her to believe her daughter, Claudia Ivette, was among the women found.

"If he killed my daughter, I want to see proof," she said. "As a mother, I doubt he did it. I just hope he is not another scapegoat."

Most of the victims were dumped in the desert outside of Ciudad Juarez, provoking outrage that reached around the world. They seemed to fit a pattern: Many of the victims were young women last seen in the city's downtown or after taking buses. Their bodies often did not appear until months later.

Police have arrested several people in the killings, including an Egyptian chemist who died in prison earlier this year; a bus driver whose conviction was overturned and his co-defendant, who died in prison before sentencing. A group of gang members are serving out sentences related to some of the crimes.

The U.S. Embassy said Alvarez Cruz may have been involved in the killings as part of a gang.

Several gangs - one allegedly made up of youths, and another of bus drivers and their friends - have been mentioned as suspects in the killings. It was not clear to which gang Alvarez Cruz purportedly had belonged.

- Associated Press writers Jon Sarche and Marina Montemayor contributed to this story from Denver, Colorado, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, respectively.

20 inmates escape from jail in western Mexican city

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) - Twenty inmates, many of them wanted on homicide, rape and robbery charges, escaped from a jail in the western state of Jalisco after overpowering guards and taking their keys, authorities said Friday. Two of the inmates were later captured and the guards are under investigation.

The escape took place shortly before midnight Thursday in Zacoalco de Torresin, an agricultural city of 30,000 people about 60 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Guadalajara, said state Public Safety Director Aldo Monjardin Diaz.

The jail was housing 29 inmates from several communities in the region at the time of the escape. Those who fled were jailed on charges of homicide, robbery, rape and corruption of minors, Monjardin said.

The prisoners surprised and then beat the two guards, one of whom was hospitalized, he said. Two prisoners were recaptured, but authorities gave no details. They were searching for the 18 prisoners still at large.

Swiss high court rejects Gypsy Holocaust suit versus IBM, cites time limit

GENEVA - Switzerland's supreme court dismissed a lawsuit accusing International Business Machines Corp. of aiding the Nazi Holocaust because too much time has elapsed, the Gypsy organization that filed the case said Friday.

Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action said it had been given notice of the decision by the Federal Tribunal in Lausanne that the statute of limitations applied to the case. It said the court's explanation would be released in several weeks.

The organization said the ruling ends the legal case before any study of the merits of the case.

"However, it will certainly not silence the voices of those victims of criminals against humanity who have decided to sue the companies which provided logistical support for their crimes," the group said.

IBM spokesman Joe Hanley said, "As we have consistently maintained, the case should not go forward. We are gratified that the Swiss federal tribunal agrees."

The Gypsies' lawyer Henri-Philippe Sambuc said in a phone interview that he wants to read the Swiss court's decision before recommending how to proceed. However, the group may consider a new action in Geneva based on foreign law.

The lawsuit was filed after U.S. author Edwin Black - in his 2001 book "IBM and the Holocaust" - said IBM's punch-card machines were used to codify information about people sent to concentration camps.

The Gypsy group said IBM's Geneva office was the company's hub for trade with the Nazis - something the company has rejected.

IBM, one of the world's largest information technology services providers, also has consistently denied it was in any way responsible for the way its machines were used in the Holocaust.

The Gypsies' lawyers maintain that the company's Geneva office continued to coordinate Europewide trade with the Nazis, acting on clear instructions from IBM's world headquarters in Armonk, N.Y.

The Gypsy group sued IBM for "moral reparation" and $20,000 each in damages on behalf of four Gypsies, or Roma, from Germany and France and one Polish-born Swedish Gypsy. All five plaintiffs were orphaned in the Holocaust.

In addition to 6 million Jews, the Nazis are believed to have killed around 600,000 Gypsies, although Roma groups say the number could have been as high as 1.5 million.

IBM's German division has paid into Germany's government-industry initiative to compensate people forced to work for the Nazis during the war.

In April 2001, a class-action lawsuit against IBM in New York was dropped after lawyers said they feared it would slow down payments from the German Holocaust fund. German companies had sought freedom from legal actions before committing to the fund.

Prosecutors drop charges against pilot who crash-landed plane in 2005 on Fla. street

MIAMI (AP) - Prosecutors dropped all charges against a pilot who crash-landed a vintage cargo plane on a residential Fort Lauderdale street last year, the pilot's attorney said Friday. - Charles Riggs had faced charges of operating a plane in air commerce illegally and failing to file a customs declaration. The charges carried a total of up to $97,000 in fines, said Riggs' attorney, Chris Mancini.

The World War II-era DC-3, which was headed to the Bahamas, experienced engine trouble after taking off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport with a cargo of granite. Riggs escaped the burning wreckage with his co-pilot and passenger.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Cohn fined the company operating the plane $2,000 plus $125 dollars in court costs for failing to file a required customs form, said U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Kay. The company, Air Pony Express, Inc., is based in Fort Lauderdale.

In July, an administrative law judge threw out a Federal Aviation Administration case attempting to revoke Riggs' pilot's license, and because the criminal case against him depended on the FAA case, the charges against him were dropped, Mancini said.

An FAA spokeswoman could not confirm after hours Friday the details of the case against Riggs.

Rescue workers credited Riggs with saving dozens of lives by managing to crash-land the plane without hitting buildings or homes in a heavily populated area.

Authorities have description of suspect in highway shootings

HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) - Authorities believe they have a description of the person responsible for a wave of vehicle shootings along northwestern Indian highways after three more damage reports Friday.

No injuries were reported, and Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez said he now believes a pellet gun was the weapon that damaged vehicle windows in 13 attacks reported since July 25.

A motorist who saw one of Friday's midday shootings along Indiana 912 north of Interstate 80/94 gave authorities a description of the shooter and a pickup truck being driven.

All 13 of the shootings have occurred on and near Indiana 912, a four-lane highway known locally as Cline Avenue, which passes through an industrial area shared by Hammond, Gary and East Chicago.

Police did not immediately release the description of the suspect or truck.

The first victim reported seeing a man wearing a trench coat shoot at his vehicle, but until Friday there had been no other witnesses.

Brazilian couple charged with manslaughter in illegal plastic surgery

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) - A Brazilian doctor and his wife accused of performing illegal liposuction surgery on a woman who died because of the procedure were charged with manslaughter Friday.

Luiz Carlos Ribeiro and his wife, Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro, already have pleaded not guilty to unauthorized practice of medicine and drug charges in the July 30 death of Fabiola DePaula.

The manslaughter charges were announced as Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley disclosed autopsy findings indicating the 24-year-old victim died as a result of the fat-removal surgery, which police said was performed on a massage table.

DePaula, a native of Brazil, died soon after being brought unconscious to a Framingham hospital, authorities said.

The autopsy listed the cause of death as "intraoperative complications," including pulmonary fat emboli - fat clots in the lungs.

Luiz Ribeiro performed liposuction on DePaula in the basement of a condominium, investigators said. He is not licensed to practice medicine in Massachusetts, but had a medical license in Brazil, they said.

Investigators believe Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro assisted in the surgery, Coakley said.

The condominium's owner, Ana Celia Pena Sielemenn, 40, of Framingham, was charged with distributing illegal narcotics to people undergoing plastic surgery. She pleaded not guilty on Aug. 1.

Authorities say DePaula underwent plastic surgery to her nose by Ribeiro earlier in the week before the liposuction. They believe she paid a total of $3,300 for the two procedures - much less than the typical cost of those surgeries.

Two other women have come forward saying they also had surgery by Ribeiro. Coakley said there are many more.

"He was well-known in the community," she said.

Prosecutors said the couple, originally from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, had 30-day work visas for the sole purpose of performing plastic surgery in the basement of Sielemenn's condominium.

At their arraignment on the initial charges, Luiz Ribeiro was ordered held on $250,000 cash bail while his wife's bail was set at $50,000. They also were ordered to surrender their passports. Both remain in custody and face arraignment on the new charges Aug. 25.

A phone message seeking comment from the Luiz Carlos Ribeiro's attorney was not returned Friday.

Framingham, a town of about 67,000 about 20 miles west of Boston, is home to an estimated 14,000 Brazilian immigrants.

Ex-con sentenced to death for killing girlfriend, raping teen

GEORGETOWN, S.C. (AP) - An ex-con who co-wrote a book about life in prison was sentenced to death Friday for killing his live-in girlfriend and raping a 15-year-old girl.

Stephen Stanko, 38, also was sentenced to 110 years in prison on other charges including criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping and armed robbery.

Stanko was convicted last week of killing 43-year-old Laura Ling and raping the teenager, who sat in the courtroom with her head in her hands and a teddy bear on her lap as the verdict was read.

The killer eluded police for four days in a manhunt that attracted national attention. He was apprehended in Augusta, Ga.

Defense attorney William Diggs had argued Stanko's life should be spared because he has a brain defect and couldn't tell right from wrong. Stanko did not speak during his trial.

Stanko was released from a South Carolina prison in July 2004 after serving more than eight years of a 10-year sentence for kidnapping.

While there, he co-wrote "Living in Prison: A History of the Correctional System," with the help of professors at East Tennessee State University.

Stanko is also accused in the death of a 74-year-old man whose body was found about a day after Ling's death. A trial date has not been scheduled.

Five charged with organizing Cuban migrant smuggling trips

MIAMI (AP) - Five men described as organizers of Cuban migrant smuggling trips have been charged in a 44-count indictment that federal prosecutors said demonstrated a new, more aggressive effort to root out higher-ups in smuggling networks.

"This indictment focuses on those who organized, coordinated, arranged and financed these trips," U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said Friday.

The five men, who are all Cuban nationals, were arrested Thursday in the Miami area and made their initial court appearances Friday in Key West. It wasn't immediately clear whether any of the five had lawyers to represent them. The men were scheduled to return to court for a bond hearing Aug. 25.

The charges follow an unusual decision made by Miami prosecutors in July to allow 28 Cuban migrants to enter the United States so they could testify against the three men who organized their trip, which resulted in the death of a Cuban woman.

Under U.S. policy, Cubans who are caught at sea are usually returned to Cuba while those who reach U.S. shores are allowed to stay.

The indictment accuses the five of being part of a smuggling ring that attempted to illegally bring Cubans to the United States in November and December 2005 and in April 2006. The April trip involved 35 Cuban migrants aboard a 34-foot speedboat that was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard after an eight-hour chase in the Florida Straits.

No deaths occurred during any of those trips.

The five defendants face long prison sentences if convicted on all charges, which include "conspiracy to encourage and induce aliens" to illegally come to the U.S.