NEW YORK - If her goal was to erase the memory of the disgraced James Frey, then Oprah Winfrey couldn't have made a better pick for her book club than a memoir by Sidney Poitier. - Winfrey ended a year-long hiatus in her club by announcing Friday that she had chosen "The Measure of a Man," a "spiritual autobiography" by one of Hollywood's most admired actors - for whom the word "dignified" could practically be copyrighted - and a personal hero of Winfrey's.

Published in 2000, Poitier's book combines memories of such plays and films as "A Raisin in the Sun" and "The Defiant Ones" with observations about the Academy Award-winning actor's childhood, his religious faith, his thoughts on racism and the influence of such world leaders as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.

"He writes really candidly and passionately about his childhood, his family, relationships and his extraordinary career," Winfrey said on her show, which airs from Chicago. "It (the book) really is about what makes character, what makes you be who you are. He is the measure of one of the greatest men I think who has ever been on our planet."

Poitier did not appear on the telecast. But Winfrey said she will host "a once in a lifetime dinner party" with Poitier that will include members of her book club.

In a statement issued Friday by his publisher, HarperSanFrancisco, Poitier said he was "overwhelmed far beyond the point where words, alone, could fully express either my appreciation or my gratitude."

"Meanwhile, I proudly accept this honor on behalf of the forces that brought it about: the love of my parents, the ever-present kindness of strangers, and the hidden mysteries of the universe and, of course, Oprah Winfrey," he said.

"The Measure of a Man" spent several weeks on The New York Times' list of best sellers, and the audio edition, narrated by Poitier, won a Grammy Award for best spoken word album. Poitier wrote a previous memoir, "This Life," released in 1980.

Right before Winfrey announced her selection, the 56th for her book club, "The Measure of a Man" ranked 288,958 on Amazon.com, a number that quickly changed, soaring within hours to the top 5. Winfrey's picks almost inevitably top best seller lists.

Mark Tauber, vice president and deputy publisher of HarperSanFrancisco, an imprint of HarperCollins, declined Friday to say how many books would be printed, but did say he expects to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Tauber also said that, unlike many celebrity memoirists, Poitier did not use a ghostwriter, although the actor did have editorial "help."

"I'm sure there'll be speculation about Winfrey picking yet another memoir," Tauber said. "But Poitier's life is filled with so much integrity."

Winfrey and Poitier have met in the past. During an interview in her own "O" magazine in 2000 - around the time "Measure of a Man" was released - Winfrey and Poitier discussed his life and career; the talk show host confided that she felt like a star-struck fan.

"Poitier and I are sitting across from each other at the Bel-Air hotel in Los Angeles - and I'm admiring that, at 73, this man still personifies grace, ease, strength and courage," Winfrey wrote at the time. "He is a gentleman in every sense of the word. In my more than 25 years as an interviewer, I've talked to hundreds of people - yet today, I'm giddy."

Poitier, who turns 80 on Feb. 20, became the first black performer to win the Oscar for best actor, cited in 1964 for "Lilies of the Field." His other films include "In the Heat of the Night," "To Sir, With Love" and "The Blackboard Jungle." In 2002, he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.

He should be a welcome break from the travesty of Frey, whose "A Million Little Pieces" was picked by Winfrey in the fall of 2005, only to have The Smoking Gun Web site reveal in January 2006 that the memoir was largely fabricated. Winfrey initially defended Frey, then changed her mind, brought him back to the show and chewed him out.

Winfrey's next pick, Elie Wiesel's "Night," was announced on Jan. 16, 2006, soon after the Frey scandal broke, but had already been decided upon weeks earlier. More than 1.5 million copies of Wiesel's Holocaust memoir were sold because of Winfrey's selection, according to publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Winfrey acknowledged on Friday's show that it had been a year since she had chosen a selection for her book club. But she didn't blame Frey. Instead, she said she was busy during that time researching curriculum for her school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa, which opened earlier this month.

"So I really did not have time to devote to reading other books," she said. "But now I do."

- Associated Press Writer Tara Burghart in Chicago contributed to this report.

Sheriff: Soldier, cheerleading coach had sex with high school students, won't be charged

GREENWOOD, S.C. (AP) - A South Carolina National Guardsman who recruited at a high school and a former cheerleading coach each are accused of having sex with students, and the principal is charged with hindering the investigation, authorities said.

Former Ware Shoals High School coach Jill Moore, 28, took cheerleaders to a motel, where they met guardsmen for sex, according to Greenwood County sheriff's reports released late Thursday.

Moore, a married mother of two, also is accused of having sex with a male student on a different occasion, according to the reports.

Because all the students involved were 16 or older, none of the adults will be charged because the teens were old enough to consent under state law, according to the sheriff's reports.

Moore, however, is charged with supplying alcohol and cigarettes to students and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She resigned earlier this month.

Principal Jane Blackwell also is accused of telling students and a school staff member not to talk about the allegations against Moore, authorities said. She was charged Monday with obstruction.

Two soldiers were suspended as part of the National Guard's investigation. The Guard said in a news release Friday that its investigation was continuing.

The sheriff's reports state Moore was having an affair with Guardsman Thomas Fletcher, 29, whom she met through the school.

Last year, Moore told two cheerleaders she was taking them to visit a prospective college, the reports said. Instead, they went to a motel where she met Fletcher in one room, and gave the cheerleaders vodka and put them in a room with Guardsman Jeremy Pileggi, according to the reports.

Pileggi, 21, acknowledged having sex with a cheerleader last year, and one of the cheerleaders said she watched Moore and Fletcher have sex, according to the reports.

The coach and the principal have denied the allegations.

Moore and Pileggi did not immediately respond to phone messages left by The Associated Press.

A woman answering Fletcher's phone said, "He can't talk right now," and hung up.

Prince Charles, Camilla arrive for Philadelphia visit; tour begins at Independence Hall

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, arrived Friday to begin a weekend of public appearances that include a visit to Independence Hall, where American colonists first declared independence from Britain.

The royal couple arrived on a British Airways jet, choosing to take a commercial flight in keeping with the prince's recent announcement that he would avoid private jets to reduce his impact on the environment.

The pair were to spend 24 hours visiting historic sites, a non-profit group and the city's Academy of Music. The couple "are going to experience a very broad cross-section of Philadelphia," said Oliver St. Clair Franklin, the city's honorary British consul.

Their official appearances begin Saturday at Independence Hall, where they will be greeted by the mayor, governor and other officials at the site where colonial settlers declared their independence from Britain.

Later they will meet with students at the Liberty Bell, followed by a reception with community leaders at the National Constitution Center.

The pair will also meet with college students and see at least one of the city's 2,700 murals. One of their planned stops is International House, a nonprofit organization housing nearly 400 students, scholars and interns from more than 65 countries.

The couple will attend a white-tie event at the Academy of Music, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary. They plan to end their visit with a church service Sunday.

The pair will then take a private train to New York, where they will visit a social services agency in Harlem and Prince Charles will receive an environmental award from Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment.

Temperatures drop in Northeast, prompting homeless worries

NEW YORK (AP) - One month into one of the mildest winters on record in the Northeast, an arctic blast sent temperatures into the danger zone Friday, and New York gave its police legal authority to remove homeless people from the streets to keep them from freezing to death.

Temperatures from Maine to Pennsylvania were in the single digits and the teens, with lows of minus-10 recorded in northern Pennsylvania.

The temperature in Central Park was 9 degrees before daybreak and reached 12 degrees by dawn, but the wind chill made it feel like minus 6.

City officials declared a weather alert that gave police power to remove hundreds of homeless people from the streets and put them in shelters. Authorities are normally not permitted to force anyone off the street without their consent.

"Though we haven't had much snow, winter has finally showed its nasty bite," said the Web site of the New York City Rescue Mission in Manhattan.

By midday, the city received nearly 2,000 calls from people complaining they had no heat or hot water.

In Pennsylvania, schools delayed openings so students would not have to wait for their school buses in the early morning cold.

Forecasters attributed the extreme cold to a southern shift in the jet stream. The high-altitude air current has been running much farther north than usual over the East Coast, allowing warm air to invade from the South.

Roommates get 5 years in prison for setting deadly Seton Hall dormitory fire

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Two former roommates who set a dormitory fire that killed three students at Seton Hall University were sentenced to five years in prison Friday after listening to the victims' relatives reject their apologies and call them murderers and cowards.

Joseph T. LePore and Sean Ryan, both 26, pleaded guilty in November to arson for setting fire to a paper banner in a lounge on Jan. 19, 2000. The flames spread to a couch, filling the dorm with smoke.

At the sentencing, family members of the three students who died and another who was seriously burned gave wrenching statements before a hushed courtroom jammed with more than 100 people.

Frank Caltabilota, whose son died, said his family could have forgiven the defendants had they quickly admitted their mistake and taken responsibility.

"Eventually, your judgment day will come from the highest court," he said. "And on that day, justice will be served for what the two of you have done. And that judge will give you a final sentence. It will be a maximum sentence, with no negotiations or plea agreements, and no chance for parole."

Many scorned the "smirks" they had seen for years on the defendants' faces, and ridiculed their claim when the pleaded guilty that the fire was "a prank that got out of hand."

Freshmen Frank Caltabilota, John Giunta and Aaron Karol, all 18, were overcome by smoke and died. Dozens of others were injured. The fire led New Jersey to enact the nation's first law requiring sprinklers in dormitories at colleges and boarding schools.

Many of the 14 speakers paid little heed to the judge's warning that they address the court, not the defendants. Tracy Caltabilota, sister of Frank, told the men: "Your complete lack of remorse has shown you to be cowards as well as murderers."

Both defendants watched the speakers, although Ryan looked away at times.

Phillip Giunta, father of John, said: "I don't think it was an accident. I don't think it was a prank. I think that's bull." He asserted the fire was set because a resident assistant had sent the pair to their room for being rowdy. Prosecutors said they had been drinking and celebrating a basketball team victory.

The relatives' remarks came after LePore and Ryan repeatedly apologized to the families.

"There's nothing I can really say to take away your pain," LePore said.

"I hope you can move on," Ryan added.

The two young men were originally charged with murder. On the eve of their trial, they struck a plea bargain that spared them the minimum 30-year terms if they had been convicted as charged.

They will be eligible for parole in 16 months.

Investigators quickly determined the fire was arson, but LePore and Ryan were not charged until 2003.

LePore and Ryan, lifelong friends from Florham Park, also pleaded guilty to witness tampering for telling some friends to lie to authorities.

As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors dropped charges that included hindering apprehension against LePore's parents, sister and a friend.

Teens plead guilty to cooking puppy alive during break-in at community center

ATLANTA (AP) - Two teenagers accused of duct-taping a puppy's snout and paws and cooking the animal alive in an oven pleaded guilty Friday to animal cruelty and other offenses.

Prosecutors said Joshua Moulder, 17, and his brother, Justin, 19, broke into a newly refurbished community center, where they tortured and killed the 3-month-old puppy, damaged computers, broke glass and splattered paint on the walls.

The brothers then brought neighborhood children to see the dead puppy and threatened to kill them if they reported it, prosecutors said.

They will be sentenced next month.

Al Unser Jr. charged with DUI after Las Vegas-area freeway crash

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser Jr. was charged with driving under the influence after leaving the scene of a freeway crash.

Unser was arrested after he was identified as the driver of a car that sideswiped another vehicle on the Las Vegas Beltway on Thursday, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Kevin Honea said.

Unser's vehicle had little damage, but the other car crashed into a cement center median. The driver reported no injuries at the scene, Honea said Friday.

Honea said Unser failed several field sobriety tests before being taken into custody. The 44-year-old Unser was charged with driving under the influence, misdemeanor hit and run, failure to render aid in an accident and failure to report an accident.

Andrew Leavitt, a lawyer representing Unser, did not immediately respond to a message Friday.

Unser is the son of Indianapolis 500 racing great Al Unser and nephew of three-time Indy winner Bobby Unser. He won the Indy 500 in 1992 and 1994, two CART points titles and two IROC championships.

Unser has had bouts with alcohol abuse and depression. He underwent treatment for alcohol abuse in 2002 after his girlfriend said he hit her in the face while drunk in Indianapolis. Prosecutors did not file charges.

Federal judge orders court monitoring for Philadelphia jails, blasts treatment of inmates

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal judge ordered city jails to go back under court monitoring, blasting conditions as overcrowded and squalid and saying inmates lack access to clean cells and adequate medical attention.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick issued a scathing ruling Thursday, calling holding facilities overflowing and lockups at police stations firetraps that violate detainees' constitutional rights.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of 11 inmates with the help of David Rudovsky, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who filed a similar suit 35 years ago. That case led to court oversight of the jails from 1971 to 2001.

Surrick toured the system, which holds roughly 8,800 inmates.

While waiting to get assigned to regular cells, detainees at one jail "were forced to sleep overlapping one another and on every inch of concrete floor," the judge wrote. "Prisoners slept with their heads next to the toilet."

Inmates would "spend three, four, five, or six days … without bedding provisions, sleeping, if they could, on metal benches or directly on the concrete floor," Surrick wrote.

A message left Friday for city Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. was not immediately returned. Diaz has said the city was aware of problems and trying to fix them but needed more money to hire staff and buy equipment, and come up with alternative solutions such as home-monitoring devices for low-level offenders.

The city spends $262 million a year on its jail system, up from $93 million in 1987 and $195 million in 2001.

Student sues Penn State over moose head fall

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Penn State student is suing the school, claiming she has suffered from headaches ever since a stuffed moose head fell on her in a classroom.

Amy Walters said she got hurt while taking a biology test at the university's Fayette campus in 2005. The lawsuit, filed Thursday, seeks unspecified damages.

A school spokeswoman had no comment.

Stolen Bigfoot statue found in Washington state - but his feet are missing

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. (AP) - An imposing, wood-carved Bigfoot statue stolen from outside a doctor's office has been recovered - minus its big feet. - An anonymous tip led police to the 400-pound sculpture beneath a pile of debris in a backyard about a block from where it was snatched Monday. Two people confessed and could face theft charges.

The likeness of the legendary ape-like creature of the Northwest used to stand 8 feet high, but its 16-inch-long feet had been sawed off at the ankles, leaving it 18 inches shorter.

"I'm glad we got him before they cut him anymore," said chiropractor Tom Payne, who had the statue made 5.5 years ago and planted at the foot of his secluded driveway as a landmark for patients. "We're relieved to have him back at the office."

The statue was recovered Thursday. The suspects, a man and a boy, offered no motive, police spokeswoman Stacy Flores said.

Bigfoot is back in place outside Payne's office in this small town between Seattle and Tacoma, and Payne plans to get him some new feet.

"I'm sure I can find a chain saw sculptor that might feel up to the task," he said.

Police: Fugitive stole country singer's tour bus, tried to give NASCAR driver a ride

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A fugitive who apparently fled to Tennessee to see his ailing mother was being sought Friday in Florida in the theft of a tour bus owned by country singer Crystal Gayle.

A man believed to be Christopher Daniel Gay was seen Thursday with the bus at a racetrack in Lakeland, Fla., telling the manager he was there to pick up NASCAR driver Tony Stewart, WTVF-TV of Nashville reported.

Police in Nashville said USA International Speedway officials became suspicious because the man's unkempt appearance didn't fit with the tour bus.

"He stated that he was leaving the racetrack to go to McDonald's to get a hamburger, and he has yet to be seen," Capt. Rich Foley said.

Speedway officials contacted police, who confirmed that the bus belonged to the country singer and had been stolen from a Nashville garage.

Gay, who has a history of theft involving trucks and other heavy equipment, has eluded capture since he escaped Sunday from a prisoner transport van during a bathroom break in Hardeeville, S.C., as he was being taken from Texas to face charges in Georgia.

He stole a pickup truck in South Carolina and made his way more than 300 miles northwest to Manchester, Tenn., where he stole a Wal-Mart tractor-trailer filled with merchandise, police said.

Police speculate that he was trying to get back Tennessee because his mother, who is dying of cancer, lives about 25 miles northwest of Nashville, near Pleasant View.

Police spotted Gay in the Wal-Mart truck Tuesday and gave chase. He drove the truck into a field about 50 yards from his mother's house and abandoned it, fleeing into the woods, police said.

He wasn't reported seen again until Thursday in Florida.

Gay was being transported from Georgetown, Texas, to Pell City, Ala., on escape and felony charges when he got away from the prisoner van, which was carrying 10 other prisoners to other locations in the Southeast.

Ohio family settles lawsuit over towel found in dead woman's body 7 years after surgery

CANTON, Ohio (AP) - The Cleveland Clinic settled a lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died seven years after a surgeon left a rolled-up towel inside her chest.

The confidential agreement with Bonnie Valle's family came Thursday, almost two weeks into a jury trial in Cleveland.

Also Thursday, Judge Nancy Margaret Russo dismissed claims against Valle's Canton-based doctor, Jeffrey Miller.

Valle had surgery for emphysema at the Cleveland Clinic in 1995 and died at age 60 in 2002. She donated her body to the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, where a dissection revealed a green surgical cloth the size of a large hand towel in her left lung.

Her family sued in 2004, claiming that because Valle's doctors never found the towel, she suffered serious complications, incurred medical expenses and died.

"She always said, `On the left side it feels like there's something there. It felt like something moved,"' Valle's daughter, Jeanne Clark, said in 2004.

Clinic attorneys disagreed that the towel affected Valle's health.

In a letter to the medical school, Miller wrote that he did not think the towel affected the length or quality of Valle's life.

"She lived seven years … which is certainly as well as one would have expected her to survive given her severe emphysema and poor pulmonary function and overall condition," Miller wrote.

Nazi-era vehicle, 'grandfather of race cars,' on display in New York before auction

NEW YORK (AP) - A rare Nazi-era race car hidden in a German mine shaft during World War II and said to be worth millions of dollars has gone on display.

The sleek silver D-Type from Audi forerunner Auto Union is to be on display for two days through Friday at the car company's fancy showroom on Park Avenue. It will be auctioned as part of Christie's Retromobile auto sale on Feb. 17 in Paris. The anonymous seller expects it to fetch $12 million to $15 million.

While Adolf Hitler gave about 500,000 reichsmarks to Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz to promote racing and technology, the car is not specifically affiliated with the Third Reich, Christie's said.

The car, one of only two in existence, is thought to be the grandfather of modern race cars. It revolutionized racing by putting the driver in front of the engine instead of behind it and reached speeds up to 185 mph.

"This car was really quite ahead of its time," said Rupert Banner, head of Christie's International Motor Cars division. "It was revolutionary. It changed the face of racing."

More than 20 Auto Union series cars were built between 1933 and 1939. This model, which has a body shaped like an airplane fuselage, was designed by Ferdinand Porsche. The driver sits sunken into the body of the metal, and the wheels, which look like oversized bicycle tires, have independent suspension.

"There was a kind of memory loss after the war," said Audi historian Thomas Erdmann. "It took really until the early 1960s and later on to the 1980s for car design to catch up to these cars."

During the European motorsports heyday just before World War II, the D-Type won the 1939 French Grand Prix. The Silver Arrow, as it was known, also was filmed winding through country roads for use in newsreels across Europe. In racing, German cars were always silver, British were racing green and French were blue.

During World War II, Auto Union workers hid the cars in a mine shaft in eastern Germany to avoid using them for scrap metal. After the war, the Russians discovered the cars and took them to their own country, along with dismantled Auto Union factories, to re-create motorsports.

"They vanished, lost behind the Iron Curtain," Erdmann said.

The cars eventually were taken apart. An American car collector came across car parts in a scrap heap in Ukraine and took them back to England, where experts Crosthwaite & Gardiner restored this car. Christie's did not say who is selling it.

On the Net:

http://www.christies.com

Robbery suspect caught with pants down

COVINGTON, La. (AP) - Police said they caught a 16-year-old robbery suspect who previously eluded them after his baggy pants fell down, causing him to stumble as officers chased him.

"We literally caught him with his pants down," Lt. Jack West said.

The teenager, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, is suspected of robbing a man at gunpoint and stealing another man's car after beating him with a brick, West said. The suspect had run away from police several times in recent weeks, he said.

An officer spotted the teen standing on a street corner Monday, called in for two backup officers, then tried to make an arrest.

"They all converged on him from different directions," West said. "He started to run, but his low-riding pants fell down and he stumbled to his knees."

The teen was booked on warrants for armed robbery, carjacking, two counts of aggravated battery and being a child in need of supervision.

Twins give birth to sons on same day

AUBURN, Ind. (AP) - Nicole Cramer had little idea when she went to the hospital to see her twin sister's newborn son that within hours, she would give birth to a son of her own.

Her sister, Naomi Sale, had scheduled a Caesarean section on Tuesday morning and gave birth to Ethan Alexander at 8:29 a.m. Cramer, also nine months pregnant, visited Sale and her new nephew in the hospital but was having contractions and didn't stay long.

"I thought, after I did the C-section, on my way home, 'I wonder if her sister would go into labor?"' said Dr. Thaddeus Weghorst, the obstetrician for both women.

Within hours, Cramer was in the delivery room of DeKalb Memorial Hospital.

After 90 minutes of labor, Cramer delivered Carter Nathaniel Birchfield.

"This solidifies the theory on the bond between twins," Weghorst said. "Even their uteri have a bond."

Cramer and Sale turn 23 on Monday. They were due to give birth within a day of each other at the end of the month, but Weghorst's office didn't figure out they were twins until they were eight months along.

The sisters explained, in unison, that they usually had their appointments on the same day, but at different times.

Weghorst, who has been in practice for eight years, said the close deliveries were a first for him.

"I've delivered two sets of twins in the same day, but never this," he said.

Alaska's largest city digs out from constant snow; even for Alaska, this is really snowy

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The snow is already piled so high that drivers cannot see around corners. Homeowners are getting worried their roofs can't handle the load. And snow-removal crews are running up the overtime hours. - Even by Alaska's prodigious, myth-making standards, this is a remarkably snowy winter on the Last Frontier.

In one of the strangest winters across America in many years, Alaska's biggest city has gotten more snow - over 74 inches so far - than it normally receives in an entire winter (68 inches). And there are still four more months of snowy weather ahead.

Anchorage Daily News columnist Beth Bragg cried, "Uncle!"

"Winter wins. Snow wins. Now can we see the sun again?" she wrote in Friday's column. "Twice already I've hired someone to shovel my roof. Both times I waited until water leaked into the house. Both times, I discovered something was amiss, not because water dripped off the ceiling, but because it seeped through the bedroom carpet."

The robust snowfall comes after several years of wimpy, low-snow winters in proudly rugged Alaska, and so it is welcome news to some.

"I love the snow. Bring it on!" said Whitney Hitchcock, a 20-year-old University of Alaska student who likes to go ice skating at an outdoor rink downtown. "I can't get enough."

The Anchorage snowfall record is 132.5 inches, set in the winter of 1955-56.

City snow-removal crews have had to cut channels through the streets, leaving narrower-than-usual roadways, hemmed in by walls of snow as high as cars.

Ronnie Arnett, who came to Alaska from Kentucky in 1999 because of the lure of the frontier, said she is fortunate she drives a big vehicle. Owning SUVs "should almost be a requirement in Alaska for safety reasons. It gives you the power to see over the humps," she said.

To help open side streets, Anchorage police have begun towing cars and issuing tickets instead of just warning drivers. Police spokesman Lt. Paul Honeman said people have "become a little lulled in light snow years."

The city's 100 snow-removal workers will have to work 10-hour shifts six days a week for the next two months to clear the streets, said Alan Czajkowski, director of maintenance and operations. And to think, last year at this time, crews were patching potholes created by a warming trend that had water running down the streets.

Contractors are fielding a blizzard of calls from homeowners wanting their roofs cleared before the ice and snow cause damage and force water through the ceiling.

Brent Eaton, operations manager for Rain Proof Roofing, said the company has a three-week backlog of roof snow-removal jobs. But he said he is not worried about his own roof yet. The city code requires roofs to withstand 40 pounds a square foot, and the snowfall adds up to only half that.

Two young boys using wheelbarrow-shaped, deep-barreled shovels struggled to push about a foot of snow off the pitched roof of the one-story Russian Orthodox Museum, for fear snow and icicles would fall on passers-by in downtown Anchorage.

In a strange weather interlude attributed in part to a shift in the jet stream, the Rockies have been hit by a series of blizzards over the past few weeks, the Northeast is seeing one of the mildest, least-snowiest winters on record, and extreme cold wiped out citrus crops in central and Southern California.

Man jailed for axing 40 trees

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - A man has been sentenced to four months in jail for cutting down more than 40 trees planted by a neighboring apartment complex, claiming they would undermine the geomancy of his house, a newspaper reported Friday.

Geomancy - also known as feng shui - is an ancient Chinese practice of arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment. People in Chinese communities frequently consult feng shui experts on the locations of their homes and placement of household objects to improve their livelihoods.

Lo Pu-yi, a feng shui expert, was convicted by the Taipei District Court of cutting down the trees in a complex next to his home on a hill in suburban Taipei, the Apple Daily reported.

Lo's neighbors accused him of cutting down the banyans, willows and bamboos, saying the trees blocked the flow of air and could undermine his livelihood, the newspaper said.

A separate court will handle his neighbors' claim for $12,000 in damages, the paper said.

Lo could not be reached for comment.

Residents evacuated in train derailment may have to wait weeks to return home

BROOKS, Ky. (AP) - Some residents forced from their homes when a train derailed last week may not be allowed back for almost a month, officials said.

Fifteen families may have to stay away while water service is re-established, said Gary Sease, a spokesman for CSX Corp., the train's owner. The company has been working with authorities to allow residents to visit their homes each day to retrieve items and check on pets, Sease said.

A dozen tanker cars derailed and sparked a massive blaze Jan. 16, spilling various chemicals. Thick black smoke billowed over Bullitt County. No one was seriously hurt, but nearby homes and a school were evacuated and part of a busy highway was closed for hours.

Since derailment, evacuees have stayed in hotels and with relatives while CSX reimbursed them for hotel bills, food and other expenses. The railroad has issued 6,500 checks for $100 each to households inconvenienced by the derailment.

On the Net:

CSX Corp.: http://www.csx.com

Mistrial declared after Va. lawyer can't finish closing argument in attempted murder case

FARMVILLE, Va. (AP) - A judge declared a mistrial in an attempted-murder case after the defense lawyer said he couldn't continue his closing statement because he had lost his train of thought.

Judge Ernest P. Gates Sr. also suggested that attorney James E. Sheffield seek medical help.

Gates declared the mistrial Thursday in the case of a man accused of shooting a police officer in the leg in 2005.

Sheffield, 74, a former judge, returned from a recess to say that he could not continue the closing argument.

Russell Smith, charged with attempted capital murder, malicious wounding and use of a firearm, offered to finish the job himself.

"This is about me," he told Gates.

The judge warned against it, and Smith requested the mistrial.

Man who took 18 years to confess to Philadelphia slaying found guilty

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A man who said his tormented conscience led him to confess to an unsolved 1987 slaying faces up to 20 years in prison now with a jury's conviction of murder.

The jury, which was asked to decide the degree of Brian Hall's guilt, convicted the 55-year-old of third-degree murder, which means he committed the crime but without the intent to kill. He will be sentenced on Tuesday.

Hall confessed to police in 2005 that he strangled Rosella Atkinson in 1987. He pleaded guilty to murder but, in an unusual process, asked a jury to decide his degree of guilt.

"We're glad a verdict was decided, but we're not pleased with the outcome. The crime that took place was not completely revealed," said Atkinson's cousin, Sandra Morris.

Atkinson, 18, had left her baby at home to go to a nearby bar and disappeared, with little of her remains left to identify when they were found four months later.

The killing remained unsolved, despite a likeness created by forensic sculptor Frank Bender, until 1990, when an aunt of the victim saw what looked like Atkinson's face on a piece at an exhibit of Bender's work.

Dental records later confirmed the match.

Hall said he suspected Atkinson had taken some money from him and he became forceful when she refused to let him search her, but his confession remains vague on other details.

Amnesia victim wandered the streets of the Dallas area for 25 days

DALLAS (AP) - Joe Bieger walked out his front door with his two dogs one morning last fall a beloved husband, father, grandfather and assistant high school athletic director. Minutes later, all of that - indeed, his very identity - would seemingly be wiped from his brain's hard drive.

For 25 days, he wandered the streets of Dallas and its environs a lost soul, unable to remember his name, what he did for a living, or where he lived, until, finally, a contractor who was building a new house for Bieger and his wife happened to recognize him.

By that point, Bieger had somehow made his way to a suburb about 20 miles from his Dallas home, holes worn in the rubber soles of his canvas shoes. He had lost 25 pounds, and a full white beard covered the normally clean-shaven educator's face.

Bieger, 59, says he was diagnosed afterward as suffering from psychogenic fugue, an extremely rare form of amnesia.

Now reunited with his family and back at work, Bieger agreed to tell his story to The Associated Press.

Bieger says he has regained all his memories up to the point he wandered away, and is amazed at the outpouring of support he received from friends, co-workers and the hundreds of volunteers who helped search for him on the streets, at hospitals and in homeless shelters and soup kitchens.

"Everyone believes that God brought me back for a reason, otherwise this might have ended differently," he says. "God wants me here to work with these students."

Bieger is under the care of a doctor who specializes in such cases. And his cell phone now includes a GPS tracking device.

But more than three months after the episode, he says he has only vague memories of those days on the streets of Dallas, one of America's most crime-ridden cities.

He recalls being stopped and frisked by police officers, who were looking for a suspect in a holdup at a pizzeria. There was also a smoky bowling alley. He remembers waking up cold on a playground, wearing shorts and a T-shirt with fall temperatures dropping into the 50s. Another time, he says, he awoke under a construction trailer.

He says he cannot recall what he ate to survive. But when he was found, he had jelly packets from a fast-food restaurant in his pockets and half a stale bagel.

Witnesses and police accounts fill in a few other gaps in Bieger's journey.

Bieger's dogs were found running loose within a few hours of his disappearance. About two weeks later, some homeless people told searchers they had seen a man matching Bieger's description near a Sam's Club store close to his home.

Over the next several days, he apparently crossed busy streets and interstate highways to the Dallas suburb of Plano, several miles north of Dallas. Not long after that, he was spotted at a church carnival in Plano.

Gwen Brooks, executive administrator at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, says the man claimed he had lost his keys and asked if he could search the bushes.

"He didn't look out of the ordinary at that time," says Brooks, adding that everyone assumed he was part of a Habitat for Humanity construction crew working nearby.

Bieger's ordeal finally drew to a close on Oct. 30, in the suburb of Carrollton.

Mike Phillips, a construction foreman, spotted a man wandering close to the site where Bieger was having a new home built. Phillips thought the man might be Bieger, but he couldn't be sure.

"Joe, Joe!" Phillips yelled, and then asked the man if he knew his name.

Bieger replied that his name must be Joe.

Did he know his last name? Phillips asked.

"No, I don't guess I do," Bieger said.

As the two men spoke, memories slowly came back, Bieger says. It took about two hours to come out of the fog.

"It wasn't instantaneous," Bieger says. "Over some period of time I began to realize who I was."

In September, before he wandered off, he had experienced two episodes of amnesia that lasted only a few hours, and so his wife of 37 years, Patricia, had an idea of what happened to him after he vanished. She says that during the ordeal, she always believed her husband was alive.

Nevertheless, "there were days when I just wanted to give up," she says. The Sunday before he was found was her lowest point. "I said, `Lord, I can't do this anymore. You just have to send my husband home,"' she says.

Dana Ames, director of a search team that looked for Bieger, says: "We knew that his intellect should still be intact, so his survival skills were going to kick in and it was a matter of time to find him."

No one seems to know exactly how many others are afflicted with psychogenic fugues, or what the precise underlying causes are. Victims may lose all memory of themselves, family or friends, but otherwise seem to function normally and can perform routine tasks. Many experience an urge to move constantly from place to place. Most victims eventually regain their memories, though it can take days and sometimes years.

Psychogenic fugues can be triggered by stress or unresolved conflict, according to experts. But Dr. John Hart Jr., president of the behavioral neurology section of the American Academy of Neurology, says researchers are trying to determine why some people might be more susceptible than others.

"It's among the rarest of the dissociative disorders," says Dr. David Spiegel, associate chairman of psychiatry at Stanford University.

Bieger's return to the Highlands School, a 400-student Roman Catholic institution, was marked by a student assembly and tears of joy.

"Just to see him and see that he was OK, the children were euphoric," says Denise Funke, a coordinator at the school.

British royal reporter jailed for hacking into palace phone systems

LONDON (AP) - A British tabloid journalist who hacked into royal officials' voicemail was sentenced Friday to four months in prison, and his editor resigned. - The judge said he had no option but to hand a prison sentence to Clive Goodman, the royal editor of the News of the World, describing his crime as "reprehensible in the extreme."

Goodman's accomplice, the 36-year-old private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, was sentenced to six months in prison for hacking into the messages, including some from Princes William and Harry.

Shortly after the sentencing, The News of the World's editor Andy Coulson announced his resignation.

"I have decided that the time has come for me to take ultimate responsibility for the events around the Clive Goodman case," Coulson said.

Judge Peter Henry Gross said Mulcaire duped mobile phone network operators into passing him confidential pin numbers to access messages left on the cell phones. He passed those on to Goodman, and between them the pair made 609 separate calls to the voicemail systems of three senior members of the royal household.

"Neither journalist or private security consultant are above the law," the judge said, passing the sentence.

The calls to intercept the voicemail messages - made between November 2005 and June 2006 - targeted the telephones of the Prince of Wales's aide Helen Asprey, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the ex-SAS officer who is private secretary to Princes William and Harry, and Prince Charles' communications secretary Paddy Harverson.

Goodman, 49, acted after his once celebrated career began to founder, his lawyer Jon Kelsey-Fry said during the daylong sentencing hearing.

"Mr. Goodman's stories were no longer considered adequate by his superiors," he said. "He was demoted, sidelined and a younger reporter was assigned to cover the royal family. Under that pressure, he feared for his job.

"It was whilst under that pressure that he departed from these high standards with which he lived his life, a departure of which he will be ashamed for the rest of his life."

Gross acknowledged the reporter had acted in desperation, but said it could not reduce the "intrinsically serious and unattractive nature" of the crime.

Mulcaire, once a semiprofessional soccer player, had also pleaded guilty to five other charges of intercepting messages of well-known figures, including those of supermodel Elle Macpherson.

Goodman and Mulcaire had earlier apologized through their lawyers to the Prince of Wales, Princes William and Harry at a previous hearing, and the judge said their contrition had allowed them to have a more lenient sentence than the maximum two years they faced.

The judge said that although none of the stories produced using the intercepted messages were particularly noteworthy, the two men's conduct was a risk "to the very fabric of life in our country."

Eavesdropping is a sensitive issue for the royal family. Charles was the victim of an embarrassing intercept in 1989. The prince and his current wife, Camilla, were recorded having an explicit phone conversation while he was still married to Princess Diana.

Chinese police detain men for deaths of women sold as 'ghost brides'

BEIJING (AP) - Police in northern China have detained three men for the deaths of two women whose corpses were to be sold as "ghost brides" to accompany dead men in the afterlife, state media said.

Authorities indicated that the killings last year were not isolated cases, the Legal Daily newspaper said on its Web site, but it did not give any details.

Yang Dongyan, 35, a farmer from Shaanxi province, said he had bought a young woman for $1,600 and planned to sell her as a bride, according to the paper.

But then he met Liu Shenghai, who told him that the woman could command a higher price as a "ghost bride," it said. The tradition, called "minghun" or afterlife marriage, is common in the Loess Plateau region of northern China, where a recently deceased woman is buried with a bachelor to keep him company after his death.

Yang killed the woman in a ditch, bagged her body, and sold her for $2,077 to Li Longsheng, an undertaker, who said he could find a buyer, the paper said.

Yang gave Liu a portion of the profits, it added.

Yang later went to the city of Yan'an and hired a prostitute he had used before, killed her and sold her for $1,000 to Li because she was "less pretty," the paper said.

The report did not give any details of how the women were killed or how the men were detained.

"I did it to earn quick money," the paper quoted Yang as saying. "If I had not been caught this early, I would've done it again."

Britain considers moving clocks forward an hour, shifting closer to Europe

LONDON (AP) - With a single sweep of an hour hand, Britain could shift closer to its continental neighbors and illuminate the thick gloom of winter evenings, a former minister said Friday, outlining proposals to set the country's clocks in line with mainland Europe.

The proposal to switch to Central European Time, 60 minutes ahead of current settings, aims to reduce road deaths, boost tourism and promote outdoor activities, Former Environment Minister Tim Yeo said.

Regional legislatures in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland would be free to opt out of the system, however - raising the prospect that London could wake up with Paris, but not at the same time as Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast.

Yeo, an opposition Conservative lawmaker, said his plan was "a simple change which would benefit everyone by creating a safer and greener country."

He said government studies have predicted a time shift would lead to fewer road deaths, an increase in tourism earnings and a reduction in energy consumption - aiding efforts to meet carbon emissions targets.

To be put formally to parliament, the plan needs government sponsorship, after filibustering legislators prevented a vote Friday.

Yeo argued Friday that for the price of an extra hour of darkness each morning, Britons would have "healthier lives with more social and recreational opportunities."

Though the Department of Trade and Industry said it had no current plans to change timekeeping arrangements, municipal authorities have suggested they plan to press the government to examine the options.

Currently, clocks in Britain go forward in the spring when daylight savings time takes effect and are turned back in the fall, and Yeo advocated standing by the practice.

David Rooney, curator of timekeeping at London's Royal Greenwich Observatory - the point where universal standard time is measured - said the proposed change comes exactly 100 years after lawmakers first put forward the idea of daylight savings in 1907.

Britain adopted summer time in 1916, during World War I; during World War II, summer time was set two hours ahead.

The nation experimented with year-round summer time from Feb. 18, 1968, to Oct. 31, 1971.

"At the time, the House of Commons was told there would be permanent summer following the change. It caused hoots of laughter when the winds began howling and snow fell," Rooney said.

"After three years there was no consensus on whether the trial had been a success, in part because a one-size fits all solution has never been correct for Britain," he added.

Southern towns and cities traditionally bask in warmer weather than Britain's northern regions and enjoy more sunlight, meaning the effect of darker mornings would be felt most severely in northern England and Scotland.

"During the experiments, some areas of Scotland were in the dark until midmorning, so it seems certain the Scottish parliament would not join England in changing time," Rooney said.

Similar problems in Wales and Northern Ireland would likely see the proposals rejected in Cardiff and Belfast, Rooney said.

In January in southern England, dawn breaks around 7:30 a.m. and dusk falls at 4:45 p.m. Aberdeen, in eastern Scotland, enjoys less sunlight - with dawn at around 8 a.m. and the sun setting at close to 4:20 p.m.

Scottish legislator Angus MacNeil said England had won a "latitude lottery" and already had a longer day than Scotland. It would be small-minded and unfair to impose on Scots a 9:30 a.m dawn, he said.

Lawmaker Charles Hendry told the debate separate time zones could "fragment the nation" and warned London's booming financial industry would be hit.

Beijing salvages 2 temples from 2008 Olympics building boom

BEIJING (AP) - Amid its frenzied citywide makeover for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing unveiled two centuries-old temples Friday that were salvaged from decades of neglect and saved from the current construction boom.

The modest temples - one to a fertility goddess, the other to a dragon deity who controls rain and rivers - sit on either end of the Olympic Green, a 1,000-acre expanse that will be the center of the Games and that is now abuzz with construction.

Their rescue is part of a promise China's leaders made in bidding for the Games - that the Olympics would foster historic preservation in an ancient capital that has often neglected the past as it hurtles toward the future.

"Beijing is a city very rich in cultural relics so the construction of venues had to be connected to the protection of relics," Kong Fanzhi, director of the Beijing Cultural Relics Protection Bureau, told reporters as he stood in a courtyard of the partly restored Niang Niang Temple. "Our slogan is to have a 'Cultural Olympics."'

The slate-gray roof and unpainted wood walls of the Niang Niang Temple, named for a Taoist goddess and built 500 years ago during the Ming Dynasty, seem incongruous next to the ultramodern venues nearby - the giant steel-latticed National Stadium, nicknamed the "Bird's Nest," and the National Aquatics Center, or "Water Cube," covered in futuristic bubble wrap.

The planned building site for the aquatics center had to be moved 100 yards north after surveyors found the temple, its buildings run down and hidden by one-story houses and its grounds used to store a steel factory's trucks, Kong and other officials said.

To the north, the 350-year-old Dragon King's Temple, which served in recent decades as a storehouse for farm equipment, stands unfinished, bounded by piles of dirt for artificial hills for a sprawling wooded area. Across a broad street, what will be the athletes' village lies covered in scaffolding and green canvas.

Mostly, a frenetic energy rules Beijing. A $38 billion building boom to put in new subways, widen roads and beautify the city is going into high gear as the Olympics draw closer.

"With 560 days to go before the Olympics … preparation work should not slack off," Mayor Wang Qishan told the annual opening session of the city's legislature Friday. Wang called Olympics preparations the city government's primary task this year.

Overall, the communist government has done an uneven job protecting the remnants of a city with more than 2,000 years of history. Decades of Maoist central planning followed by aggressive commercialism plowed over many historic places.

In 2000, then-Mayor Liu Qi promised the International Olympic Committee that a Beijing Olympics would display "the brilliance of Chinese civilization." City planners mapped out 25 historic neighborhoods for preservation.

Some of those neighborhoods have since gone under the wrecking ball as developers and city officials take advantage of a boisterous real estate market. Housing prices shot up 15 percent last year and are projected to rise 11 percent this year, according to industry figures.

The reclamation of the two temples stands as an example of what a determined government can do, relics protection officials said.

"The protection of these temples was done very rapidly," said Wang Youquan, a Beijing cultural relics protection official. "I've been doing this work for 20 years and this was the best done job in my experience because the government stressed its importance."

Preservation makes for difficult choices in a city with hundreds of historic landmarks, strapping Beijing's modest $15 million relics-protection budget, Wang said.

Aiding the salvage effort were special regulations requiring archaeological surveys, and fast action to protect relics and keep venue construction on schedule, officials said.

Unlike the emperor's Forbidden City palace, the Temple of Heaven and other grand monuments that Beijing is famous for, the Niang Niang and Dragon King temples catered to ordinary Chinese living in what was mostly farmland outside the high-walled city.

Archaeologists unearthed more than 500 graves at construction sites scattered along the Olympic Green, finding mostly simple coffins, lots of coins and other goods. A few ceramic vats for burying Buddhist monks were found.

Traditionally, living on or near a graveyard holding the bodies' of strangers would have been thought unlucky. Kong, the relics protection official, agreed, but scoffed that the tradition ever held back development.

"Beijing has over 3,000 years of history, and there are graves everywhere," Kong said. "The city has been expanding and covering over graves throughout history."

Police arrest 10 Chinese villagers in dispute over paper mill pollution

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Police in southern China arrested 10 farmers embroiled in a dispute with a paper mill over pollution they say is killing their crops and fouling their water sources, villagers and media reports said Friday.

The men were taken away in a pre-dawn raid on Jan. 12, accused of "obstructing public duties," said Li Yongjin, a resident of the town of Botang in the impoverished region of Guangxi.

"They've given us no information about when they'll be able to get out," he said by telephone.

The arrests came a day after local officials told the villagers to prepare for a mediation session with managers from the Zhongtaifu mill, Li said.

The dispute reflects a common complaint in China: Industries move into areas where land is cheap, then release untreated, heavily polluted wastewater and fumes into the countryside.

With local governments unwilling to step in and often acting in collusion with factory owners who bring welcome tax revenues, farmers frequently seek outside help or mount their own, often violent protests aimed at shutting down the offenders.

Botang residents had used only legal channels to reach a settlement, however, repeatedly petitioning officials at the county and regional governments in the six years since the mill opened, according to villagers and the Boxun.com news Web site, which frequently reports on sensitive issues from outside China.

Chen Jian, an official with the environmental protection bureau in the regional capital of Nanning, said the plant had been ordered closed, but continued to operate.

"There is a serious pollution problem with the Zhongtaifu paper factory," Chen said. "If that is the case, the government is obligated to take measures to close down that factory."

Chen said the bureau was petitioning the government of Wuzhou, whose administrative region includes Botang, to enforce the closure order.

Phone calls to Botang government offices and the local police station rang unanswered. The Zhongtaifu paper mill had no listed number and general manager Zhou Jianping did not answer calls to his cell phone.

"We're surrounded by dirty, stinking air," Li said.

"The rice here is black. The fruit is either black or white. Rice and fruit are our main industries - it's horrible," he said.

Blaze at Finnish psychiatric hospital injures 18

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - A fire at a psychiatric hospital in Finland injured 18 people, five of whom were in serious condition, police said Friday.

The fire, believed to have been started by a patient, broke out late Thursday at the Pitkaniemi hospital in the town of Nokia, some 125 miles north of the capital.

One of the hospital's buildings was destroyed before firefighters were able to put out the blaze early Friday, police said.

Three employees and 15 patients were rushed to hospital to receive treatment for burns and smoke inhalation. Thirteen returned to the psychiatric ward; five remained in intensive care, hospital officials said.

Authorities were investigating the blaze, but the most likely cause was that one of the patients "apparently set fire to clothes hanging on a coat rack," police spokesman Pasi Nieminen said.

Report: British police focus on Russian businessman as suspect in radiation poisoning

LONDON (AP) - British police are preparing to ask prosecutors to bring charges against a Russian businessman in the radiation poisoning death of a former Russian intelligence agent turned Kremlin critic, a newspaper reported Friday.

The Guardian, quoting unidentified sources in government, said suspicion had fallen on Andrei Lugovoi, who met Andrei Litvinenko the day he believed he was poisoned.

Litvinenko died three weeks later from exposure to the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Metropolitan Police declined to comment on The Guardian's report, except to say that the investigation was continuing. No one has been charged in the case.

The Guardian quoted Lugovoi as saying in Moscow: "I am not guilty. I have nothing to do with the killing of Litvinenko."

Litvinenko met Lugovoi, Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun and another man at the Millennium Hotel in London on Nov. 1. Litvinenko died in a London hospital on Nov. 23.

In a deathbed statement, he accused President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, allegations which the Kremlin has dismissed.

Lugovoi and Kovtun - both former Russian ex-security agents - have reportedly been treated for radiation contamination in Moscow.

Litvinenko sought asylum in Britain after he broke with the FSB - the spy agency that succeeded the Soviet-era KGB - in 1998, when he announced publicly that he had refused to obey an order from his superiors to kill Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.

Berezovsky, a one-time Kremlin insider, is now one of Putin's biggest critics. Russia is seeking to extradite him on fraud charges, but he was granted asylum in Britain in 2003.