NEW YORK - With a cherubic face and a shock of dark hair, Suri Cruise - subject of the world's most anticipated baby photo - made her debut Wednesday on the cover of Vanity Fair.

The magazine's 22-page spread of 4.5-month-old Suri and her famous parents, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, includes photos taken by Annie Leibovitz for the October issue, on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles and nationwide on Sept. 12.

The cover photo shows Suri peeking out of a jacket worn by Cruise with Holmes looking on. Katie Couric, in her first night as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," revealed the photo Tuesday.

Born April 18, Suri had not previously appeared in any published photos, prompting some public speculation about her very existence.

"She has Kate's lips and eyes," the 44-year-old Cruise is quoted as telling the magazine. Counters Holmes: "I think she has Tom's eyes. I think she looks like Tom."

Leading up to the frenzy over the photos, "We were just living our lives, being a family," Cruise says. "Actually, we were taking our own photos and always planned to release those at the right time."

But "then all the craziness began," Holmes, 27, says. "This `where is Suri?' controversy. Tom and I looked at each other and said, `What's going on?' We weren't trying to hide anything."

Holmes also explains their purchase of a sonogram machine, saying she and Cruise were followed by paparazzi and as a result, her doctor had to make house calls.

"The sonogram was for his use!" she says.

Holmes says of her daughter: "She's a glorious girl. She's the miracle of our life."

Sole survivor of Kentucky crash that killed 49 asks, 'Why did God do this to me?'

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 49 people near Lexington last week told family members from his hospital bed, "Why did God do this to me?" but he hasn't mentioned the crash, a close family friend said Wednesday.

James Polehinke, who was the flight's co-pilot, can move only his head, and tears often well up in his eyes, said Antonio Cruz, Polehinke's mother's boyfriend. He said the 44-year-old had only gained consciousness on Tuesday.

Polehinke hasn't mentioned the crash and doctors have encouraged family members not to ask him about it, Cruz told The Associated Press.

According to federal investigators, Polehinke was controlling Comair Flight 5191 when it the regional jet took off from a too-short runway at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, crashed and caught fire in a nearby field on Aug. 27. He was pulled to safety from the broken cockpit, but everyone else aboard the plane died in the crash and fire.

Polehinke is now off a ventilator but could be hospitalized for several more weeks with facial and spine fractures, a broken leg, foot and hand, three broken ribs, a broken breastbone and a collapsed lung.

He has asked about various family members, Cruz said, and has questioned his relationship with God.

One of the first full sentences he said after regaining consciousness was, "Why did God do this to me?" Cruz said.

Cruz said Polehinke's mother, Honey Jackson, told him: "It was not God. It was just an accident."

Investigators are looking into airport construction and staffing at the control tower, among other things, as a possible contributing factors to the Aug. 27 crash. The lone tower operator had turned to do administrative work as the plane turned onto the wrong runway and tried to take off, officials said. According to FAA guidelines, two control tower operators should have been working at the time.

"Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin wouldn't have wanted state funeral, father says

BEERWAH, Australia (AP) - "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, killed in a stingray attack this week, knew the risks involved in his work and often discussed the possibility he might die doing it, his father said Wednesday.

The 44-year-old star was being filmed for a new TV program as he swam with a stingray on the Great Barrier Reef Monday when it lashed out with its tail, plunging a poisonous barb into his chest. He died within minutes.

In the first public comments by Irwin's family since the tragedy, Bob Irwin, who started the wildlife park that his son turned into a major tourist attraction, said both were aware of the inherent dangers of their occupation.

"Both of us over the years have had some very close shaves and we both approached it the same way, we made jokes about it," he said. "That's not to say we were careless. But we treated it as part of the job. Nothing to worry about really."

Thousands of fans have flocked to Irwin's Australia Zoo wildlife park in Queensland state, creating a shrine of flowers, candles and written tributes. Stuffed animals poke out from between flags of Australia, the United States and England, and some visitors signed and left khaki shirts similar to those worn by Irwin in lieu of a condolences book.

Bob Irwin, 66, thanked fans for their messages of support and reassured them his son had died doing what he loved.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has offered a state funeral, and Prime Minister John Howard said that would be appropriate, calling Irwin a great ambassador for Australia. But Bob Irwin said it wouldn't be what Steve wanted.

"He's an ordinary guy, and he wants to be remembered as an ordinary bloke," he said. "The state funeral would be refused."

Michael Hornby, the head of one of Irwin's wildlife charities, Wildlife Warriors, said the star's wife, Terri Irwin, was considering the state funeral offer, but Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio later reported that she had decided against it.

Hornby said Terri Irwin was thinking about having a smaller, private ceremony at an Outback location and approving a separate large event at a stadium in the state capital, Brisbane.

He also urged people to be careful in sending donations to Irwin's charities as a tribute, saying two or three bogus Web sites had been set up attempting to divert some of the money.

Separately, Irwin's manager and close friend John Stainton said the videotape showing him being fatally stabbed should never be publicly aired.

"It should be destroyed," Stainton told CNN's "Larry King Live." He said he has seen the footage and it shows Irwin pulling the barb from his chest in his last moments.

The tape is in the possession of police as evidence for the coroner.

The Discovery Channel, which produced and aired Irwin's programs to a reported global audience of more than 200 million, said it will not show the footage.

Police have said there are no suspicious circumstances in Irwin's death, and no decision has been made about whether a coroner will hold a formal inquest or simply accept the police findings. No formal cause of death has been announced.

Terri Irwin briefly addressed park staff late Tuesday over a public address system.

"She was very choked up. It was a very frail comment," Hornby told The Associated Press Wednesday. "But she wanted to say to the staff how grateful she was for their support and how much it meant to her."

Bob Irwin said he had just spent nearly a month with his son's family on Cape York in tropical northern Australia doing crocodile research.

"Steve was probably the best I had seen him in many years, in his own personal attitude," he said. "He was peaceful. He was not under stress. And he was doing something that he really loved doing. I won't ever forget that three or four weeks."

Forecasters say Tropical Storm Florence over Atlantic could become hurricane by weekend

MIAMI (AP) - Tropical Storm Florence gained strength in the open Atlantic on Wednesday and could become a hurricane by the weekend, but forecasters said it was too soon to tell if it would reach the United States.

Florence had sustained wind near 50 mph Wednesday morning, over the 39 mph threshold for a tropical storm. The minimum for a hurricane is 74 mph.

"Several days down the road it could very well strengthen into a hurricane," said National Hurricane Center forecaster Jack Beven. Forecasters have said that could happen as early as Friday.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the storm was centered about 800 miles east of the Northern Leeward Islands, or about 2,000 miles east-southeast of Miami, and was moving toward the west-northwest at about 12 mph.

"The concern would be Bermuda at this point, how close the destructive force winds will move toward it," said Dave Roberts, a forecaster at the hurricane center. Florence's center was about 1,295 miles southeast of Bermuda on Wednesday.

Tropical storm-force wind extended up to 290 miles from its center.

"Although Florence continues to get better organized, it remains an unusually large Atlantic tropical storm, and large cyclones tend to take longer to develop and intensify than smaller ones do," said hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart.

Florence follows on the heels of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which formed Aug. 25 over the southern Caribbean and was briefly the season's first hurricane before weakening and hitting Florida and North Carolina last week as a tropical storm.

At least nine deaths in the United States were blamed on Ernesto, which also killed two people in Haiti, delayed the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis and blacked out thousands of homes and businesses from North Carolina to New York.

Last year's Atlantic storm season had a record 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes, including Katrina.

The 2006 Atlantic hurricane season has not been as rough as initially feared. The National Hurricane Center lowered its forecast in August to between 12 and 15 named storms and seven to nine hurricanes.

On the Net:

Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

Teen held for 8.5 years says she 'thought only of escape'

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The young Austrian woman imprisoned for 8.5 years in an underground cell "thought only of escape" during her entire ordeal, and once tried to jump out of her captor's car, she told a magazine and a newspaper in interviews published Wednesday.

Natascha Kampusch, who bolted to freedom on Aug. 23 while her captor busied himself with a cell phone call, told the Austrian weekly magazine News she repeatedly asked herself: "Why, of all the many millions of people, did this have to happen to me?"

The interviews hit the newsstands a few hours before a TV interview with Kampusch, now 18.

"I thought only of escape," she told the magazine two weeks after she won her freedom by taking advantage of a phone call that distracted Wolfgang Priklopil. She ran to neighbors, who called police.

Priklopil, 44, killed himself within hours of her escape by jumping in front of a commuter train.

In a separate interview with the mass-circulation daily Kronen Zeitung, Kampusch said she once tried to jump out of Priklopil's car, "but he held me back and then sped away." She did not say when that failed attempt occurred.

"I always had the thought: Surely I didn't come into the world so I could be locked up and my life completely ruined," Kampusch was quoted as saying. "I always felt like a poor chicken in a hen house. You saw on TV how small my cell was - it was a place to despair."

News printed a large color photograph of a pensive-looking Kampusch on its cover, showing her with piercing blue eyes and a pink kerchief covering part of her strawberry blond hair.

The magazine said it interviewed Kampusch at Vienna's General Hospital, where a cardiologist examined her for possible heart trouble. She said she had suffered throughout her captivity from heart palpitations that at times made her dizzy and rendered her memory of some events "fuzzy."

Kampusch also said she often did not get enough to eat. Another Austrian magazine, Profil, had reported that at the time of her escape she weighed just 92 pounds - exactly her weight when she was abducted off a street while walking to school as a freckle-faced 10-year-old.

Kampusch called her escape "completely spontaneous."

"I was there behind the gate to the garden and I felt dizzy. I realized for the first time how weak I really was," she said.

But Kampusch added that she felt well enough - "physically, mentally and no heart problems" - to attempt another escape.

Once out on the street, "I saw a window open and someone busy in a kitchen, and I asked the woman to call the police," she said.

Kampusch told News she has made a smooth transition to freedom "and now have no trouble living together with other people."

On Wednesday evening, a 20-minute prerecorded interview with Kampusch was to air nationwide on public broadcaster ORF, which said her face would be visible unless she asks for a last-minute electronic retouching. Previously, the station had suggested she would appear behind a screen or with her face otherwise altered so she would not be recognizable on the street.

"People will see her," said Christoph Feurstein, the journalist who interviewed her Tuesday at an undisclosed location.

Feurstein said Kampusch spoke "from the gut" in the TV interview and wore a headscarf, which he described as more of a fashion accessory than an attempt at a disguise.

Among the more touching moments in the interview, according to Feurstein: Kampusch describing the stillness of the cell when she was first thrust inside, and her account of how she once struggled in vain to make eye contact with people when her captor took her shopping.

Although the interviews released Wednesday included the first images of Kampusch since her escape, they were not the first time she has been heard from.

Last week, Kampusch issued an eloquent handwritten statement that gave details of her captivity, spent for the most part in the tiny, windowless cell in the dingy basement of Priklopil's home in the Vienna suburb of Strasshof. That statement contained some surprises: Kampusch said she did not feel she missed out on much during her years as a prisoner, and she said she "mourned in a certain way" for Priklopil.

ORF said Kampusch had decided which questions to answer and had refused to be asked anything intimate. Police have said she may have had sexual contact with her captor, but have refused to elaborate.

Kampusch told News she regretted that Priklopil committed suicide "because he could have explained so much more to me and to the police," but added that she no longer wished to talk about him.

Kampusch also told the magazine she loved her parents, who divorced after she was taken, and denied there was any controversy. Psychologists treating her have said she has been in touch with her mother, but has not asked for her father since they were briefly reunited after her escape.

She said she wants to complete her high school education and is considering a range of possible careers, including journalism, psychology, acting and art, and that she has not yet decided whether to write a book about her ordeal.

Japan's Princess Kiko gives birth to boy, defusing succession dilemma

TOKYO (AP) - Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth Wednesday to the royal family's first male heir in four decades, easing a succession crisis and quelling an emotional political debate over whether to allow women on the throne.

Kiko, 39, underwent a Caesarean section at a Tokyo hospital, bearing a boy who is third in line to the throne after Crown Prince Naruhito and Kiko's husband, Prince Akishino, 40. The baby's name was to be announced next Tuesday.

The arrival of a new prince - Emperor Akihito's first grandson - defused a succession dilemma in the coming generation of the royal family, which traces its roots back some 1,500 years.

The news was cheered by many Japanese, who still maintain an enduring respect for the imperial family more than 60 years after the late Emperor Hirohito renounced his status as a divinity at the end of World War II.

Newspapers ran out extra editions, supporters gathered outside the hospital where Kiko gave birth and TV networks ran continuous coverage of the delivery and profiles on the princess and her courtship with Akishino.

The closely watched birth was also likely to put the brakes on a divisive debate over whether to change Japan's 1947 imperial law to allow women to inherit the throne.

While eight women have ruled over the centuries, the last taking the throne in 1762, they served mostly as placeholders until a suitable male could be found, and none passed the crown to their offspring.

The boy, the first royal male heir born since Akishino in 1965, was born at 8:27 a.m. Wednesday and weighed 5 lbs. 10 oz., the Imperial Household Agency said. Both child and mother were in good condition.

The birth took place under intense public scrutiny and expectation. News of Kiko's pregnancy and delivery date led to rallies in shares of baby-care companies amid hopes that other Japanese would be inspired to have more children.

"That's great," gushed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he heard the news.

"Not only the members of the imperial family, but all the people of Japan must have felt happy" at the news, he told reporters later in the day.

Kiko, who already has two daughters, was hospitalized on Aug. 16 after showing symptoms of partial placenta previa, in which part of the placenta drops too low in the uterus. Officials, however, said the pregnancy was never in jeopardy.

The birth set in motion a cycle of ancient imperial ceremonies. On Wednesday afternoon, for instance, an emissary from Akihito was delivering a special sword to Akishino's residence as a symbol of protection for the new infant.

The gender of the baby had been a closely guarded palace secret, though Japanese tabloids had speculated the child would be a boy - the hope of conservative Japanese who want to preserve the male-only imperial line.

Doctors said at a news conference that Akishino and Kiko did not know the baby's gender until the birth and that they had told the doctors they did not wish to know beforehand.

"I'm from the old generation, so I think it's better for a boy to become the emperor," said Chioko Hasegawa, a 74-year-old cleaning woman, as she worked in central Tokyo.

The birth follows a tumultuous decade for Japan's royal family, which is still highly respected by the public and is largely shielded from view by the secretive Imperial Household Agency.

Emperor Akihito's eldest son, Naruhito, 46, has a daughter - Aiko, 4 - with his wife Masako, but the couple have no sons.

The imperative of producing a male heir may have taken its toll on the Harvard-educated Masako, 42, who gave up a career in diplomacy to marry Naruhito. She suffered a miscarriage in 1999 before Aiko was born and has struggled with stress-induced depression in recent years.

The possibility there would be no male in the next generation had prompted serious discussion about allowing a female to assume the throne and pass it on to her offspring.

Such a step was recommended by a high-level panel late last year, and Koizumi vowed to submit a reform bill to parliament.

But conservatives mounted a vociferous offensive against the plan, arguing that allowing the daughter of an emperor to pass the throne to her child would destroy a precious Japanese tradition.

Opponents suggested the revival of concubines to produce imperial heirs, or the reinstatement of the aristocracy - banned after World War II - to widen the pool of imperial male candidates.

The debate was so fractious that Koizumi shelved the reform after Kiko's pregnancy was announced in February, and it was likely there would be no rush to return to the fray following Wednesday's birth.

"I see the debate stopping completely for a while," said Koichi Yokota, a constitutional law expert at Ryutsu Keizai University in Ibaraki. "It's a divisive issue, and not something the new prime minister will want to tackle right away."

In addition, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, a conservative who is widely expected to replace Koizumi as premier later this month, suggested Wednesday he was less enthusiastic for reform than the prime minister, calling for caution.

"Reforming the Imperial Household Law is an important issue that concerns the stability of the imperial family," he told reporters. "We must carry on the debate in a careful and calm manner."

Even Koizumi said a bill to revise the Imperial Household Law will not likely be submitted soon.

"It's not something that we will submit to the next year's parliament session," he said. "It's better to watch the situation calmly for a while," he told reporters.

Some Japanese, however, argued that the reform debate should continue, since the birth of a single boy simply postpones the question.

"There is no need to stick to a male heir. Regardless of gender, whoever is next in line should take the throne," said Mai Yanagida, 20. "I think it's fine if Princess Aiko becomes the next empress."

Associated Press writers Hiroko Tabuchi and Kana Inagaki contributed to this report.

Top police investigator in northern Mexican state shot to death

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - The top police investigator for Nuevo Leon, a northern Mexican state that borders Texas, was shot to death by a lone gunman outside an art gallery, police said Wednesday.

Marcelo Garza, director of Nuevo Leon's State Investigations Agency, was walking to an art gallery in the upscale suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia Tuesday night when a gunman approached him and shot him twice in the head, state Attorney General Luis Trevino told reporters.

Trevino said the gunman escaped in a silver car.

"This is a great loss because Garza was a professional who had obtained great results," Trevino said.

Garza, 36, had been the state's top investigator since 2004, working closely with prosecutors in the arrest of several alleged drug traffickers. Last year, he helped in the mass arrest of 20 gunmen allegedly working for the Sinaloa Cartel. From 1996 to 2002, Garza worked as a federal agent based in Monterrey.

Investigators say the Sinaloa Cartel is fighting the Gulf Cartel for billion-dollar drug smuggling routes into the United States. The battle has led to beheadings, grenade attacks and execution-style killings across Mexico. A hot spot has been Nuevo Laredo, where slayings have occurred nearly daily this year.

Nuevo Leon authorities have said that Nuevo Laredo drug smugglers may be moving to Monterrey to hide from rivals looking to kill them.

5-year-old rescued from Missouri lake, search for mother called off after woman found safe

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Fishermen rescued a 5-year-old girl who was thrown into lake before dawn Wednesday, and divers searched the water for another possible victim before determining the child's mother was safe.

The girl, whose name was not released, had told investigators her assailant told her her mother was dead.

"She told the investigator that the suspect said he'd killed the mother and put her in the lake," said Greene County Sheriff's Capt. Jim Barber.

Investigators later found the mother safe on land and reunited her with the little girl, who was in a Springfield hospital.

Investigators were looking for a man who they believed took the girl during the night while she was being watched by a baby sitter and threw her into McDaniel Lake north of Springfield. Barber said the suspect's vehicle had been found but he declined to release further details.

The mother had called police early Wednesday after she and the baby sitter discovered the girl was missing.

In the meantime, deputies had been called to the reservoir by three fishermen who heard loud splashing and spotted the girl in the water. Two of the men dove in and rescued her. They told investigators a man was on the bridge and drove off when they jumped in after the girl.

Barber said investigators do not believe the suspect is the child's father but they also don't believe it was a random act.

McDaniel Lake, part of Springfield's water system, is about 40 feet deep around the bridge. Safety railings on either side of the bridge are about chest-height and about 15 feet above the water.

Polygamist church leader makes first court appearance

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) - Looking pale and gaunt in a green-striped jail uniform, polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs made his first appearance in 5th District Court via closed-circuit TV Wednesday on charges he arranged a marriage between an underage girl and an older man.

Jeffs, 50, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice, which carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. He is being held in the Purgatory Correctional Facility in nearby Hurricane.

The hearing was conducted via video, with Jeffs about 15 miles away at the jail and the judge at the Washington County courthouse in St. George.

Security was heavy at and around the courthouse. Several SWAT teams could be seen in strategic positions. None of Jeffs' supporters came to the hearing.

Judge James L. Shumate set a preliminary hearing for Sept. 19, when the issue of bail will be addressed.

Last week, Shumate granted a request from County Attorney Brock Belnap to temporarily revoke a $500,000 bond request. The prosecutor, who has called Jeffs a flight risk, wants bail yanked permanently.

Even if the judge sets bail, federal prosecutors would step in and put a hold on Jeffs, based on a separate but related charge tied to his fugitive status before his arrest last week, Belnap said.

Jeffs said little during the proceeding. He said his Nevada lawyer is helping him find counsel in Utah.

He said he had been advised by his lawyer, Richard Wright of Las Vegas, to request a continuance until he obtained a lawyer in Utah. Shumate said he wasn't inclined to grant the continuance but would hold a status conference on Monday to see where Jeffs was in the search for legal representation.

Since 2002, Jeffs has been the leader of the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints with most of its members living in the twin towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz. Jeffs has led in absentia since about 2004, when he disappeared after civil lawsuits alleged sexual and emotional abuses against a handful of young men, including a nephew, who claimed they were booted from their families by Jeffs.

Jeffs had been considered a fugitive from justice since 2005, when Arizona authorities charged him with two felonies, accused of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a 28-year-old man. He was named to the FBI's most wanted list in May.

Jeffs was arrested Aug. 28 in a traffic stop north of Las Vegas. He was transferred to Utah from Nevada on Tuesday.

In Utah, Washington County prosecutors contend Jeffs forced a teenage girl from his sect who was under 18 to marry and have sex with an older man, commanding her to give herself "mind, body and soul to your husband like you're supposed to."

Belnap has made a point of saying his office is not attacking Jeffs' religion or the practice of polygamy.

"People have a right to whatever religious beliefs they may hold. However, religion is not an excuse for criminal conduct," Belnap said at a news conference last week. "This case is about someone in a position of power and authority committing a crime against a vulnerable young girl."

Polygamy has been practiced in Utah since the 1800s, when early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled the Salt Lake valley. The faith officially abandoned the practice in 1890, although it continued among members who splintered away from the main church, including those who eventually formed Jeff's FLDS church.

The Mormon church now denounces polygamy, excommunicates members found practicing it and denies the existence of "Mormon fundamentalists," although many Utah-based polygamists refer to themselves that way.

There are an estimated 37,000 people practicing polygamy in Utah and other Western states, according to a survey by Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy advocacy and education group based in Salt Lake City. There is also a growing number of Christian polygamists throughout the U.S. who have no connection to early Mormonism, said Mark Henkel of TruthBearer.org, another pro-polygamy group.

Henkel said the allegations against Jeffs and his high-profile arrest are damaging to other polygamists because it blurs the line between adults trying to practice their beliefs and those committing crimes against children.

"(We) have openly opposed Jeff's alleged crimes and all the underage issues as much as any non-polygamist," said Henkel. "Now that he has been caught, Jeffs will rightly face trial in a real court of justice."

Also Wednesday, Mohave County, Ariz., prosecutor Matt Smith began the third of eight trials against men from Jeffs' sect, all of whom are charged with felony counts of sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy for their "spiritual marriages" with underage girls.

The charges carry penalties of up to two years in prison and are the same one Smith filed against Jeffs in 2005. Jeffs is expected to be extradited to Arizona for trial after his Utah trial is complete.

So far, only one of the eight has been convicted. Kelley Fischer was found guilty by a jury in July and sentenced to 45 day in jail and three years' probation. He has appealed. A second case against Randolph Barlow is on hold after the victim refused to testify during trial last week.

23 people hurt in NYC bus crash with tractor-trailer

NEW YORK (AP) - A city bus and a tractor-trailer crashed near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge during the morning rush hour Wednesday, injuring 23 people.

None of the injuries from the Staten Island crash was believed to be life threatening, NYT Transit said.

The crash happened about 8 a.m. near the bridge's toll plaza, said NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton.

The cause of the crash was under investigation, Seaton said.

Young boys missing near N.C. river; Family evacuated as another river swollen by Ernesto rises

DANBURY, N.C. (AP) - Two young brothers were missing from a home near a fast-moving stream Wednesday, while across the state six people were evacuated from an area flooded by a river swollen by Tropical Storm Ernesto.

In northwest North Carolina, where heavy rain fell after Ernesto moved through the state last week, search crews were looking for the two missing boys, ages 3 and 4, after they were believed to have wandered away from their grandparents' home.

Search dogs tracked the boys' scent to the nearby Dan River. The river has been swollen by rain and runoff but wasn't flooded.

Jacob White, 3, and Jeffrey White Jr., 4, were reported missing Tuesday afternoon, said Monty Stevens, director of Stokes County Emergency Medical Services. Danbury is about 120 miles west of Raleigh.

The boys' mother, Melissa White, said she was at a friend's house when she was called and told the boys had disappeared.

"It's not like them to wander off," she said.

The six people evacuated Wednesday - a man plus a woman and her four children - were in Burgaw, near the coast, where the Northeast Cape Fear River was almost 4 feet above flood stage Wednesday. At least 140 people have been evacuated since the river rose out of its banks Friday as Ernesto swept through, officials said.

"It's not a life and death situation. They have been trapped by this water for so long and they just wanted to get out," said Eddie King, Pender County's director of emergency management.

They lived about 1,600 feet from the river near Burgaw, a town about 100 miles southeast of Raleigh. No injuries were reported.

Ernesto, briefly the season's first hurricane, blew up the East Coast last week, pouring heavy rain on coastal sections of North Carolina and Virginia. At least nine deaths in the United States were blamed on storm, which also killed two people in Haiti, delayed the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis and blacked out thousands of homes and businesses from North Carolina to New York.

Michael Jackson must pay $60,000 in L.A. custody case

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Michael Jackson must pay $60,000 in attorney fees for his ex-wife as she pursues a custody case against the pop superstar, a judge ordered Wednesday.

Superior Court Judge Robert A. Schnider gave the entertainer until Sept. 28 to meet the order. He did not rule on whether to grant Deborah Rowe visitation rights to the couple's children, Prince Michael and Paris.

Jackson and Rowe did not attend the hearing.

Rowe had sought $195,000 toward her attorney fees but Schnider declined, noting that she had received an $8 million divorce settlement.

"She has millions of dollars, so she should be able to contribute to her own fees," Schnider said.

The amount granted Rowe was reasonable and the judge left open the possibility that she can seek additional fees later, Rowe attorney Eric M. George said outside court.

Rowe, a former nurse for Jackson's dermatologist, married him in 1996 but filed for divorce in 1999 and later gave up custody rights. She asked a judge to reinstate them in 2003 after Jackson had been arrested on child molestation charges.

He was acquitted last year and now lives in Bahrain.

In February, a state appeals court ruled that her parental rights had not been properly relinquished under the law.

Attorneys for Jackson and Rowe were scheduled to meet next Tuesday to discuss settling the custody case.

"Hopefully all issues will be settled," Jackson attorney Michael Abrams said. "In one week, this case may be over."

Jackson also has a third child, Prince Michael II. The boy's mother has not been identified.

Yo, Adrian! Rocky statue is being returned to a spot outside the Philadelphia Art Museum

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Rocky Balboa - or more specifically, a statue of the Hollywood palooka, boxing gloves raised in triumph - is being restored to a spot outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the winner by a split decision in a bout between fine art and pop culture.

Despite complaints that the statue is piece of kitsch undeserving of display near Renoirs and Monets, the city Art Commission voted 6-2 Wednesday to move the 2,000-pound bronze out of storage and put it on a street-level pedestal near the museum steps.

The steps were the setting for one of the most famous scenes in Sylvester Stallone's 1976 movie "Rocky" and have been a big tourist attraction ever since, with visitors to Philadelphia imitating the Italian Stallion's sweat-suited dash to the top. (Of course, after bounding up the 72 steps and pumping their fists in the air like Rocky, the tourists often turn around and leave without setting foot in the museum.)

The 8-foot-6 Rocky is expected to be on his granite pedestal in time for a dedication ceremony Friday.

"We're thrilled," said city Commerce Director Stephanie Naidoff. "What more wonderful a symbol of hard work and dedication is there than Rocky?"

The two commission members who voted against the move, artist Moe Brooker and University of the Arts president Miguel Angel Corzo, said the site was inappropriate.

"It's not a work of art and … it doesn't belong there," said Brooker, a professor at Moore College of Art and Design. Rocky's battle to the top "is a concept, it is an idea, and ideas don't need justification in terms of objects."

Corzo suggested that he might resign from the commission over the vote, saying that placing the pugilist near the museum goes against the commission's desire to "raise the standards of the city."

He said the issue for him was not whether the statue was art, pointing out the debatable aesthetic value of some of the Philadelphia museum's works - for example, a porcelain urinal by avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp. But he questioned whether Rocky deserved to be neighbors with sculptures such as Rodin's "The Thinker," which sits nearby on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

But the majority of commissioners who approved the move said Rocky has become synonymous with Philadelphia.

"This is not art as it has been defined by aesthetic" standards, said commissioner Emanuel Kelly, who scored the fight for Rocky. "But in terms of this as a cultural icon over 30 years, it has beared the test of time."

The sculpture by A. Thomas Schomberg was commissioned by Stallone for a scene in "Rocky III" (1982) and also appeared in "Rocky V" (1990). After the third Rocky installment, Stallone donated the statue to the city - and the real fight began.

The statue was installed at the top of the museum steps, but was removed after just a few months when museum officials and art aficionados argued that it was merely a movie prop and that its "exaggerated proportions and caricature" would sully the internationally renowned museum's image.

After much bobbing and weaving, Rocky was moved to a spot at the city's sports stadium complex in South Philadelphia. It was moved again and eventually warehoused after filming began on the latest installment of the saga, "Rocky Balboa," which hits theaters in December.

This week's dedication ceremony - with the flesh-and-blood Stallone expected to attend - caps a week of festivities celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original "Rocky" movie. The events include a Rocky and Adrian lookalike contest and outdoor boxing matches.

Stallone's publicist in Los Angeles, Michelle Bega, did not immediately return a call for comment. Art museum spokesman Norman Keyes had no comment.

Reached at his Colorado studio, Rocky's sculptor said he was happy the statue has a permanent home where "the city and the people of Philadelphia can enjoy it."

"I think the location at the top of the steps certainly would have been fabulous, but I'm also pleased with the current location," Schomberg said.

Skakel's attorneys submit videotape to compel testimony of man implicated in murder

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - In a bid to win a new trial, attorneys for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel submitted a three-year-old videotaped interview Wednesday of a man who implicated two friends in a 1975 murder that sent Skakel to prison.

The move was aimed at compelling one of the friends to testify after he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

"It's very powerful evidence that Michael Skakel was not involved in the homicide," said Hubert Santos, Skakel's attorney. "At a minimum, the jury should have been permitted to have this information if it were available."

Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, is serving 20 years to life in prison for his conviction in the bludgeoning death of neighbor Martha Moxley when the two were teenagers.

He is seeking a new trial based on a claim by Gitano "Tony" Bryant in 2003 that two of Bryant's friends may have killed Moxley.

Bryant and the two men he implicated, Adolph Hasbrouck and Burt Tinsley, have all asserted their Fifth Amendment rights.

Skakel's attorneys filed a motion Wednesday opposing Hasbrouck's efforts to avoid testifying.

Lawrence Schoenbach, Hasbrouck's attorney, would not comment Wednesday except to say he was considering a libel or slander lawsuit against Bryant. Hasbrouck's wife has called the claim a lie. Tinsley has not returned telephone calls seeking comment.

According to Skakel's attorneys, Bryant said he was with two friends from New York in Skakel and Moxley's neighborhood the night she was killed. According to court papers, Bryant said one friend had met Moxley and "wanted to go caveman on her," and that after he left them that night, they later told him, "We did what we had to do."

South Dakota agribusinessman envisions Japanese barley tea as America's next trendy beverage

WILLOW LAKE, S.D. (AP) - A South Dakota businessman wants to see if barley tea, a popular potable in Japan for centuries, could catch on with Americans.

Pitchers of iced barley tea are a summertime staple in Japanese homes. Americans simply haven't been exposed to the beverage, said Tim Walter, who thinks barley tea could take off in a Western culture - much like green tea and chai have.

"We're hoping this could be a craze in the U.S.," said Walter, founder of Dakota Farms International Ltd.

Walter's company, based in the town of Willow Lake, has been producing barley tea bags for a Japanese company since February 2005. He entered the Japanese market as a soybean farmer.

Most of the grain used in Japanese barley tea are grown by farmers there or imported from Canada, but it's the same type of barley grown in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, said Cary Sifferath, Japan Senior Director of the U.S. Grains Council.

Sifferath said nearly every soft drink company in Japan bottles barley tea for sale in vending machines and convenience stores. The drink has a unique flavor and he's not sure how Americans would take to it.

"Even Coca Cola-Japan has its own barley tea product," Sifferath said by telephone from his Tokyo office. "If they thought there was a (U.S.) market for it, they would probably be trying to go after it."

Walter said he served barley tea both cold and hot during last year's Food Marketing Institute show in Chicago.

"We've had real good responses, so we feel quite confident that this is a product that could go," he said.

Dakota Farms' process begins with organically grown barley. Workers roast the grains as if they were coffee beans, grind them and send the tea to an automated machine that packs bags slightly larger than a business card. Each tea bag yields 1 liter.

The product, which tastes a bit like coffee, is fine just as it is, Walter said, but those looking for a sweeter flavor can add honey or table sugar.

"It has a clean taste. You don't have to put any sugar in it," he said.

Just over half of the nearly 320 million bushels of barley produced in the U.S. each year goes for animal feed and about 44 percent is used to produce malt, an important ingredient in beer, according to the National Barley Foods Council.

Only 2 percent is used in food products, but that number could grow because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the council's claim that barley can reduce the risk of coronary disease, said Mary Palmer Sullivan, the council's executive director.

The FDA earlier this year ruled that barley contains beta glucan, a fiber-type complex sugar that can help lower cholesterol, she said.

Walter said he's not yet sure if he can use that claim to market his tea. But he thinks U.S. consumers will latch on to a drink that is naturally caffeine free, high is fiber and contains antioxidants.

"We haven't tested to confirm how much beta glucan remains in the barley after roasting, but that's an angle we're approaching," he said. "But even without that, there's other benefits."

As Dakota Farms continues to produce 800 cases a week of barley tea for its Japanese customer, Walter is planning more market tests as he prepares to debut his product domestically within the next couple of months.

Walter knows it's difficult for small companies to get new products into large supermarket chains, but he said every retailer is still looking for something new and exciting.

"Ten or 15 years ago, nobody knew what chai was," he said. "These things can happen."

Some U.S. colleges face legal challenges for evicting suicidal students from the dorms

NEW YORK (AP) - A depressed Hunter College student who swallowed handfuls of Tylenol, then saved her own life by calling 911, was in for a surprise when she returned to her dorm room after the ordeal.

The lock had been changed.

She was being expelled from the dorm, the school informed her, because she violated her housing contract by attempting suicide. The 19-year-old was allowed to retrieve her belongings as a security guard stood watch.

Policies barring potentially suicidal students from dorms have popped up across the country in recent years as colleges have struggled to deal with an estimated 1,100 suicides a year. But some of those rules have come under legal attack.

Hunter College announced last month that it was abandoning its 3-year-old suicide policy as part of a settlement with the student. The student, who was allowed to continue attending class, claimed in a lawsuit that her 2004 ouster from the dorms violated federal law protecting disabled people from discrimination.

The school, part of the City University of New York system, also agreed to pay her $65,000.

Hunter spokeswoman Meredith Halpern said the college may still consider temporarily removing troubled students from its residence halls, but such evictions will no longer be automatic.

College officials say such expulsions are not punitive; Halpern said Hunter's policy was aimed at protecting students' privacy and shielding them from schoolmates' prying eyes. At George Washington University in the nation's capital, spokeswoman Tracy Schario said the idea is to give suicidal students a break from the stresses of university life and encourage them to seek help.

But some activists suspect such evictions are an attempt by colleges to avoid legal liability if someone commits suicide in the dorms.

Up until recently, the prevailing legal theory had long been that adult students were responsible for their own behavior, and that colleges could not be held liable. But that philosophy was undermined by a pair of court rulings involving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ferrum College in Virginia.

In both cases, judges ruled prior to out-of-court settlements that colleges might have a duty to prevent a suicide if the risk was foreseeable. The cases prompted some schools to be more aggressive about sending troubled students home.

Karen Bower, an attorney with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, which helped litigate the Hunter College case, said she hopes the settlement will prompt other schools to rethink their policies.

"The real danger of these policies is that they discourage students from getting the help that they really need," Bower said. Students might be scared from speaking out about suicidal thoughts if they believe it would mean eviction, she said.

The chances that a student might be expelled from a dorm simply for talking about suicide with a counselor are considered slim. Conversations with mental health professionals are generally confidential and protected by privacy laws.

But universities can hear about a student's troubles and take action if he has been talking with friends or classmates, or does something that leads to a middle-of-the-night hospitalization, which might involve campus security or a housing official.

Elsewhere around the country, George Washington University is being sued by a former student who was barred from campus and threatened with expulsion after checking himself into a hospital for depression. The student, Jordan Nott, said he never tried to kill himself but had been thinking about it because of the suicide of a close friend, also a George Washington student.

The Bazelon Center is also representing a student at a Connecticut boarding school who was placed on a mandatory leave after seeking treatment for depression.

George Washington's Schario said the school's treatment of Nott was not an attempt to limit legal liability, but "to protect a life." She added that Nott's case was an unusual one. More than 200 students seek help for depression or suicidal thoughts each year at George Washington, and a majority are not asked to leave.

"It is always a case-by-case assessment of what is best for that particular student," Schario said.

She acknowledged, however, that the university's current practice of using its disciplinary system to handle some students with psychological problems "does appear insensitive" and said other procedures were being considered.

Joanna Locke of the Jed Foundation, a program aimed at preventing college suicides, said schools should have flexibility. Some schools, she said, may feel a need to send a student home if they cannot offer proper treatment, or if the student has become disruptive.

"There is no right answer, except that (the decision) should be made carefully, and the decision should be made kindly," she said.

Former Treasury employee admits stealing sheets of $100 bills

WASHINGTON (AP) - A former Treasury Department employee admitted Wednesday that he stole more than $67,000 in uncut sheets of $100 bills and tried to launder the money through casino slot machines.

David C. Faison was caught after casinos in Atlantic City, West Virginia and Delaware noticed $100 bills that did not contain government seals or serial numbers. Surveillance video showed him feeding bills into slot machines, playing for a while, then cashing out for new bills.

Faison, who distributed currency paper within the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, admitted stealing 21 sheets of 32 bills each and hiding them in a roll of Christmas wrapping paper at his house.

Faison, of Largo, Md., pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing counterfeiting materials. He faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 12. He also must pay $37,200 restitution, including $1,200 to a Delaware coin collector who purchased three of the stolen bills after Faison put them into circulation.

Investigators recovered $14,500 in stolen bills from the casinos and found nine complete sheets and most of a 10th sheet at Faison's house.

Former conjoined twin to undergo more surgery in Utah; Wis. twins begin separation surgery

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)- A 4-year-old girl who was separated from her twin sister last month in a 26-hour operation will undergo additional surgery Wednesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Kendra Herrin started showing signs of a bowel obstruction Friday. Doctors at Primary Children's Medical Center believe scar tissue from the surgery is causing the obstruction. If scar tissue becomes a problem, it typically starts after about three weeks.

Hospital spokeswoman Laura Winder said the bowel surgery will be done by Dr. Michael Matlak, a pediatric surgeon who participated in the twins' initial separation surgery.

Kendra and Maliyah Herrin, who were joined at the mid-torso, were separated in a marathon surgery that started Aug. 7. They were moved from intensive care to regular hospital rooms last week.

Conjoined twins occur about once in every 50,000 to 100,000 births. Only about 20 percent survive to become viable candidates for separation.

In Washington on Wednesday, neurosurgeons at Children's National Medical Center began separating another set of conjoined twins. Brothers Mateo Asher Shaw and McHale Twain Shaw of Sheboygan, Wis., were born in May joined at the lower back. The procedure was expected to take 14 to 23 hours.

The boys' parents have said they are optimistic about the operation, as well as the long-term prognosis for the boys, who both have spina bifida.

"That's the only way you can go into something like this," the boys' father, Ryan Shaw, said in an interview last week.

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Discovery of abnormal 'intersex' fish in Potomac River raise questions about human impact

WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists say abnormal "intersex" fish, with both male and female characteristics, have been discovered in the Potomac River and its tributaries across the Capitol Region, raising questions about how contaminants are affecting millions of people who drink tap water there.

"I don't know, and I don't think anybody knows, the answer to that question right now: Is the effect in the fish transferable to humans?" said Thomas Jacobus, general manager of the Washington Aqueduct, which filters river water for residents to drink in the District of Columbia, Arlington, Va., and Falls Church, Va.

So far, there is no evidence that tap water from the Potomac is unsafe to drink, according to Jacobus and officials at other area utilities.

Humans should be less susceptible to pollutants than fish because of their larger bodies and different hormone systems. And unlike fish, their bodies are not constantly exposed to the water.

The worrisome fish were first found in a West Virginia stream in 2003. Now, scientists are finding male smallmouth and largemouth bass with immature eggs in their sex organs at testing sites dotting the region.

Last month's testing at three tributaries emptying into the Potomac revealed that more than 80 percent of all male smallmouth bass found were growing eggs, according to Vicki S. Blazer, a fish pathologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

At a testing site in Washington, seven of 13 male largemouth bass showed some kind of unusual feminine characteristic, Blazer told The Washington Post. Six of the seven tested positive for a protein used to produce eggs and three actually carried eggs.

Although scientists have not identified the source or sources of the problem, the results appear to suggest that the Potomac River and its tributaries have a problem with so-called "endocrine disrupters," which can tamper with natural chemical signals.

In the past 10 years, pollutants mimicking hormones have raised alarms around the world as alligators, frogs, polar bears and other animals have developed abnormalities.

Scientists have identified a large number of pollutants that could be to blame - including human estrogen from processed sewage, animal estrogen from farm manure, certain pesticides and soap additives.

The discovery in Minnesota over a decade ago of frogs with extra legs, ovaries in males and other deformities was considered an early warning sign of environmental distress linked to farm chemicals.

Congress in 1996 required the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study how the pollutants may affect human health. A decade later, however, officials said the agency hasn't tested any chemical, the Post reported.

"I would have hoped it would have been faster, but this is a very difficult program," said Clifford Gabriel, director of the EPA's Office of Science Coordination and Policy.

Officials: Gunman in tourist attack waited 24 years to avenge brothers

RUSAIFA, Jordan (AP) - A gunman waited for his children to grow up before he opened fire on tourists in Jordan, killing one, to avenge his brothers' deaths in an Israeli strike on Lebanon in the 1980s, the Jordanian government said Wednesday.

A neighbor said gunman Nabeel Ahmed Issa Jaourah may have "hastened" because of distress at the just-ended war in Lebanon, and recent images of children killed there and in the Gaza Strip.

"The images of kids killed in Lebanon and Palestine were painful to his eyes," said the neighbor of the Palestinian refugee, known to many in his poor community as an observant Muslim but not a militant.

The neighbor spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of police reprisal.

Early Monday, Jaourah, a welder, left his wife and five children in their modest brick home in this industrial town 15 miles northeast of Jordan's capital, for Amman's Roman Amphitheater, a favorite haunt of Western sightseers.

Eyewitnesses heard him shout the Muslim battle cry of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" as he sprayed pistol shots at a group of foreign tourists, killing British accountant Christopher Stokes and wounding five other Westerners and a Jordanian tourist police officer before he was overpowered and arrested.

Jaourah faces the death penalty if he is convicted of charges that include use of an unlicensed weapon resulting in the death of an innocent civilian, a military prosecution official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. Jaourah should be referred to the military state security court for trial after questioning wraps up next week, the official said.

The attack shook this relatively quiet kingdom, which is still recuperating from last November's triple Amman hotel blasts claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq. The bombings killed 60 people, mostly Jordanian Muslim women and children, as well as 3 suicide bombers.

Initially, the government called the shooting incident a "terror" attack, but later said the man had no terrorist links.

"The criminal said during investigations that he wanted to avenge two of his brothers, members of Palestinian organizations, who were killed in an Israeli strike on Lebanon in 1982," government spokesman Nasser Judeh said.

Judeh said the gunman waited 24 years to carry out his attack "because he wanted to have his children grow up."

A day before the attack, Jaourah settled an outstanding $40 debt with a grocer, acquaintances said.

Judeh said the investigation indicated that Jaourah's action was a "lone act." But police are questioning him to see if he was working with any militant group, security officials said.

Jaourah was born and lived in Jordan's largest refugee camp, Baqaa, before his family - displaced in the 1967 Mideast war - moved to Rusaifa 10 years ago.

The conservative town mushroomed from 4,000 to 300,000 inhabitants in the influx Palestinian refugees from four decades of fighting with Israel.

No one was at their home Wednesday in Rusaifa, the hometown of Abu Qatada, a radical Islamic cleric living in Britain who is described as Osama bin Laden's "spiritual ambassador in Europe." The town borders Zarqa, a militant hub and the hometown of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

New Delhi to ban bicycle rickshaws from heart of old city

NEW DELHI (AP) - Bicycle rickshaws will be banned to clear traffic congestion in the heart of New Delhi's old city, authorities said Wednesday.

Electric buses will provide alternate transportation in the city's famed Chandi Chowk market, the city told a New Delhi court that had ordered the ban. The ban goes into effect Sept. 18.

The rickshaws and the rickshaw-wallahs, or drivers, make up a central part of the atmosphere along the market's main road. They ferry people to the small lanes where vendors sell everything from aromatic spices and brightly colored cloth to dazzling diamonds.

However, the multitude of the slow moving cycles together with wagons hauling goods, beggars lining the roads, vending carts selling drinks and tobacco and thousands of pedestrians have made the roads virtually impassable for other vehicles.