SAN BERNARDINO -- A man who, as a teenager, was starved and chained to a bed in one of the most horrific child abuse cases in Southern California history, was shot to death after he apparently became confused while trying to find a bus home, authorities said Tuesday.

Jerry Davis, 20, was found bleeding on a downtown sidewalk about 65 miles east of Los Angeles. He died shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday, San Bernardino County Deputy Coroner Rocky Shaw said.

Randy Valenzuela, 23, was arrested for investigation of murder at a Hemet home a short time later after police tracked the license number of a black van that had been seen in the shooting area, according to a police report.

The motive for the shooting remained under investigation.

Davis and his younger brother were found three years ago chained to a bed in their home in the high desert town of Wonder Valley. Davis, then 17, and his 12-year-old brother also had been starved and beaten off and on for about 10 years. Authorities said they had scars on various parts of their bodies and appeared to be mentally and physically stunted.

The boys' parents, John and Carrie Davis, and another woman who lived with them, Faye Potts, were arrested. Davis called himself "Rajohn Lord" and claimed to be an ordained Christian minister.

"Proverbs tells you to discipline your children, or else they will grow up and kill their parents," he said at the time. "All I did was discipline them."

Jerry later changed his name from Yahweh and his brother, Angel, changed his name to Mike. The younger boy, now a teenager, lives in a foster home, said Kenne Miller, executive director of Child Advocates of San Bernardino County, a nonprofit group that advocates for abused and neglected children in the court system.

Investigators determined a third Davis son, Rainbow, had been beaten and kicked to death at age 6 in 1991. His remains were found in a grave.

John Davis committed suicide in jail in 2001. His wife pleaded guilty and was sent to a state mental hospital indefinitely. Potts was sentenced to nearly six years in prison after pleading no contest to child abuse and false imprisonment.

Jerry Davis was taken into care by San Bernardino County authorities. He spent time in a live-in mental health facility but in July moved to the Garden of Peace, an independent living center in Rialto, house manager Art Johns said.

"When he first came he was really closed in, paranoid and everything. The longer he stayed the better he got," Johns said. "He was getting better. Every month he was improving."

Davis was a schizophrenic who took medication and was sometimes childlike and argumentative, Miller said.

"We think that somebody gave him a hard look, or … or he might (have given) them a hard look," which may have prompted the shooting, Miller said.

Davis had left the home Friday afternoon to visit his friends at the Child Advocates group downtown, Johns said.

"He was going by bus and I asked him not to go, because Jerry gets lost walking down the street. His sense of direction was very poor. Going from here to the bathroom he gets lost," Johns said.

People who knew Davis were stunned to learn of his death, believing he was getting his life in order.

"It's so hard to believe, I was in shock," Miller said. "After all he had been through, all he'd survived, for such a senseless act to take him away."

"He was a very naive and innocent kid who, we felt, … was just beginning to get a chance."

California man held on $1 million bond in fatal river accident

LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. (AP) -- A California man was being held on $1 million bond in the deaths of three people in a weekend boat collision on the Colorado River.

Grier Dean Rush, 62, of Maywood, was charged with failure to stop after a watercraft collision in Parker Justice Court on Monday.

Rush, the owner of Rush Performance Boats, was allegedly operating the boat that struck a jet boat driven south of Parker Dam on Friday night by Jonathan Herbert, 21, of Laguna Hills.

Herbert, his 18-year-old sister Jaquel Herbert and Ashley Rollins, 18, of Mission Viejo, were killed in the crash. Another person in the boat, 18-year-old Josh Rogers, was critically injured.

Authorities initially thought Rush was one of the victims in the accident because he couldn't be found after the collision. On Sunday, he turned himself in to La Paz County authorities.

Man burns to death in Pomona

POMONA (AP) - A man apparently burned to death near railroad tracks as a witness tried to extinguish the flames, authorities said Tuesday.

The unidentified man was seen on fire about 11:30 p.m. Monday at tracks known as the Chino Spur, said police Sgt. Joann Crabb. The witness ran to his aid with a fire extinguisher, she said. The victim was taken to Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center where he died.

Los Angeles County fire inspectors were investigating the death as an accident.

Former Cal Poly SLO professor arrested on child porn indictment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A former Department of Mechanical Engineering chairman at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, was arrested Tuesday on a federal grand jury indictment alleging possession of child pornography found on his university computers.

Safwat Moustafa, 63, of Grover Beach, was arrested by FBI agents without incident, the U.S. attorney's office said. He was indicted Friday by the grand jury in Los Angeles on two counts of possession of child pornography.

Moustafa left the university in 2001 after campus police notified the FBI that a technician repairing Moustafa's computer earlier that year found more than 10 images of child pornography. The technician was instructed by university officials to make a "mirror image" of the computer hard drive and then return the computer to the professor, the U.S. attorney's office said.

More than 50 images of child pornography were found on a university-issued laptop computer later seized by campus police, federal investigators said.

Moustafa was to appear on the charges before a U.S. magistrate in Santa Barbara later Tuesday.

Each count of possession of child pornography carries a maximum penalty on conviction of five years in federal prison.

There were several reasons the case took about about two years before a grand jury indictment was issued, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Rod Castro-Silva in Los Angeles. After the university did its investigation, FBI agents "needed to do our own analysis of the computers" in preparing the case, he said of one of the reasons.

University Provost Paul Zingg said in a February interview with The Tribune of San Luis Obispo that in "cases that I am aware of, the university acted decisively and properly in order to send a clear message that there are boundaries with regard to the use of state equipment."

But teachers have First Amendment and academic freedom rights to view pornography images of adults in their offices as long as it does not create a hostile work environment, Zingg said.

The executive committee of the university's Academic Senate in May of this year rejected on a 6-4 vote a resolution to bar professors from viewing such images.

Four men charged with manslaughter in Chicago nightclub stampede that killed 21

CHICAGO (AP) -- A nightclub owner and three other men were charged with manslaughter in a stampede that killed 21 people last winter -- a tragedy prosecutors said was caused in part by the owners packing the place to five times its capacity.

E2 nightclub owner Dwain Kyles, his alleged partner Calvin Hollins Jr., party promoter Marco Flores and Hollins' son, Calvin Hollins III, a club manager, pleaded innocent Tuesday. A grand jury handed up the sealed indictments last week.

"They put individuals into a precarious situation where any incident could -- and unfortunately in this situation did -- lead to tragedy," said Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine.

Involuntary manslaughter involving multiple deaths carries up to 10 years in prison.

None of the defendants spoke at the hearing. A judge set bail ranging from $15,000 to $35,000, and lawyers for the four said they would post bond later Tuesday.

The Feb. 17 stampede at the E2 nightclub started after someone used pepper spray to break up a dance-floor fight. Patrons fled for the doors, crushing each other on a narrow staircase.

After the hearing, Kyles expressed his sympathy to the families of the victims and said he was upset by the charges. "I simply look forward to my day in court," he said.

Prosecutor Robert Egan, reading from the indictment, said the owners willfully packed the club with about 1,200 people on the night of the stampede, roughly five times its capacity of 240.

The complaint also alleges the owners violated a July 2002 court order demanding that the building's second floor be closed. The owners' lawyer have argued the order referred only to balconies above the second floor.

Calvin Hollins Jr. and Kyles, a former lawyer for the city with longtime connections to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, have pleaded innocent to contempt charges in a separate case accusing them of violating an order to close E2 because of building code violations.

The lawyer for Hollins Jr., Thomas Royce, has said his client had no link to the company that owned and operated E2. Royce called the indictment "overreaching."

Joseph R. Lopez, a lawyer for Flores, said his client was not present at the time of the stampede and had nothing to do with the club's operation.

"My client is terrified," Lopez said. "All of the defendants are scared."

Lakesha Wilson, a cousin of stampede victim Nicole Rainey, said outside the courthouse that she thought the bail was too low.

"I think they should go to jail," Wilson said.

Ex-operator of Georgia crematory where decaying bodies found pleads innocent to some charges

LAFAYETTE, Ga. (AP) -- A former crematory operator accused of dumping decaying bodies around his family business pleaded not guilty Tuesday to some charges and contested the validity of hundreds of others.

Ray Brent Marsh, 29, pleaded not guilty to 179 counts of abuse of a body and 47 counts of making false statements.

His lawyer, Ken Poston, said Marsh was withholding pleas on 122 counts of burial service fraud and 439 counts of theft by taking, describing those charges as "defective" because the law does not support them.

Marsh, who took over the Tri-State Crematory from his father in 1997, is accused of stashing 334 bodies at the site in Noble in northwestern Georgia. He remains free on bond.

When investigators searched the property in February 2002, they found heaps of decaying bodies that were supposed to be cremated -- many spilling out of a storage shed, scattered around the crematory building and in nearby woods. About 225 bodies have been identified.

In addition to the criminal case, hundreds of people are suing Marsh for failing to perform cremations.

A grand jury indicted the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football player on the 787 felony counts last month. No trial date was set; the defense is seeking a change of venue, citing pretrial publicity and other factors.

Lisa Cash, 33, received an urn that she thought was filled with the cremated remains of her mother, Norma Jean Hutton, who died in 2001. Instead, the powder was concrete.

"Every time I see his face I think about my mother laying out in the backyard," Cash said after the arraignment.

Postage stamp honoring Washington as nation's capital on sale

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When the Postal Service unveiled a series of stamps honoring the 50 states last April, the nation's capital was nowhere to be found. District of Columbia leaders protested -- and won. On Tuesday the new 37-cent D.C. stamp made its debut.

The diamond-shaped multicolored stamp features a montage of monuments and an engraving of portions of Pierre L'Enfant's 1791 design for the city. There are also blooming pink cherry blossoms and colorful brick rowhouses from the city's Shaw neighborhood.

"This stamp, really for the first time, is showing our city as a city as opposed to our city as a symbol," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams.

"We wanted this stamp to be about our city," added Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's non-voting delegate in the U.S. House. She is also backing efforts to have the district included in the Treasury Department's quarters honoring the states. That measure has passed twice in the House before dying in the Senate.

Nearly 4 million in Denmark and Sweden lose electricity in afternoon blackout

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- A power outage struck the capital of Denmark and southern Sweden on Tuesday afternoon, leaving nearly 4 million people without electricity, authorities said.

Utility officials said the outage, caused by a faulty transmission line between the two countries, was being repaired and most customers would likely have power restored before nightfall.

Police did not suspect sabotage or terrorism.

Traffic signals and lights in offices, shops and homes went dark just after noon in Copenhagen, a city of 1.8 million people.

Hundreds of people emerged from downtown stores and looked around. Some used cell phones to call friends and family. Traffic along the city's main thoroughfare was bumper to bumper. Hospitals used backup generators.

Sture Larsson, technical director of the Swedish National Grid, said workers were working to bring power back up.

"We're reconnecting the electricity from the national grid to the local and regional network," he said.

Trains in Denmark's new driverless subway system came to a stop along the 8.7-mile long route, a Metro spokeswoman told The Associated Press. Passengers were evacuated from two trains without incident.

The capital's widespread commuter rail system also came to a halt, police said.

Flights to Copenhagen's airport were diverted to Sweden, said spokeswoman Camilla Kjaersgaard.

The Oresund bridge and tunnel, which connects Copenhagen to Malmoe, Sweden, was closed to traffic.

At the Kronfaagel chicken factory in Kristianstad, Sweden, the power outage meant a temporary reprieve for about 100,000 chickens scheduled to be butchered.

"Everything came to a standstill. We cannot produce anything," said Mikael Nilsson, a company spokesman.

Rally denounces racism after Duke University fraternity party mocking Mexicans

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) -- Protesters at Duke University rallied against a fraternity that promoted a party with fliers that looked like expired green cards and a mock border patrol checkpoint at the door.

The chapter's Web site also posted an image of a drunken Mexican, but the fraternity president said Tuesday that that notice wasn't authorized by the chapter's leaders.

"Everything that I am -- my family, customs, culture and language -- was violated," said Sandra Sanchez, who helped organize the demonstration Monday at Duke Chapel. "The stereotypes of drunk Mexicans and border crossing was hurtful."

Several speakers told about 75 students, professors and administrators that the Sept. 13 Sigma Chi party inflamed their long-held belief that Duke has ignored its Latino students, who make up about 7 percent of the school's enrollment.

Sigma Chi president Marc Mattioli, who said he is Latino, apologized and said the fraternity was not racist.

He said the fraternity was talking with leaders of the Latino community to develop an education program for fraternity members and Duke community.

The party "was designed to be a lighthearted celebration of the Mexican tourism scene," Mattioli wrote in a letter published in Duke's student newspaper, The Chronicle.

"In no way was it intended to imply a political or social statement about Mexico, Mexican-Americans, immigrants or immigration policy," he wrote. "Obviously, it did not come off as such."

Mattioli added Tuesday that the computer image of the drunken Mexican was posted by the chapter's Webmaster without the knowledge of fraternity leaders.

He said the image was posted several days and was removed after he learned about it.

Fraud defendant located in Mexico 10 years after fleecing

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A Taos businessman who allegedly fleeced New Mexicans of $5 million in a securities scam dating back to 1988 has been returned to the United States after being recognized and arrested in Mexico, the FBI reported.

Mexican police and FBI agents arrested Henry A. Rivera, 50, last Thursday in Guadalajara, where he had lived since the mid-1990s, FBI supervisory agent Doug Beldon said Monday. Rivera was being held at the Los Angeles County Jail awaiting extradition to New Mexico, Beldon said.

Rivera was wanted on warrants charging several New Mexico felony counts of securities fraud, unregulated securities and racketeering, Beldon said.

"He even victimized people in his church," the agent said.

The only federal charge facing Rivera was unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Agents filed that charge in 1996, Beldon said.

In Mexico, agents discovered that Rivera had remarried and had at least one additional child, Beldon said.

"He was operating a swimwear shop," he said.

Rivera could face up to 180 years in prison if convicted of all counts he currently faces, he said.

In 1995, even though Rivera was missing, Albuquerque attorney Marc Robert filed suit on behalf of 93 alleged victims who shared the $5 million loss. Beldon said the number of alleged victims ultimately exceeded 100 and the total amount of their loss rose to about $6.5 million.

A message seeking comment was left for Robert late Monday.

Robert's 1995 lawsuit alleged Rivera used his status as an agent or employee of Prudential Insurance Co. to persuade plaintiffs to give him money.

Prudential also had been listed as a defendant. Messages were left at Prudential offices in New Mexico seeking comment Monday night.

Robert has said the plaintiffs were nonprofit organizations and individuals, including retired people who were trying "to build a nest egg."

In 1994, the New Mexico attorney general's office brought a criminal case against Rivera, and he was indicted on charges of racketeering, fraud, securities fraud, sale of unregistered securities and transacting securities business without a license.

Until now, Rivera never had been located to stand trial. A criminal file showed an outstanding bench warrant issued for him in August 1994 with bond set at $250,000.

The lawsuit said the alleged investment scheme was conducted between 1988 and 1993. It said Rivera told potential investors he could "purchase mortgage notes secured by real estate from government entities" and sell them quickly for a substantial profit.

Isabel's damages to Naval Academy in tens of millions of dollars; half of classrooms unusable

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- Hurricane Isabel flooded classrooms and laboratories at the Naval Academy, destroying electrical systems and classroom computers and causing tens of millions of dollars in damage on the military college's waterfront campus.

Half of the academy's classroom space was still unusable Tuesday and midshipmen had to move to the auditorium, field house and basketball arena for some classes, said Cmdr. Rod Gibbons, an academy spokesman.

"We're in disaster recovery here at the academy," said Gibbons, who stressed that the buildings -- some of which date to the early 1900s -- are structurally fine. About 120,000 square feet of labs were soaked.

Hot water was restored Tuesday morning to Bancroft Hall, the dormitory that houses all 4,000 students, Gibbons said. But it was still too dangerous to restore electricity to other buildings where basements were still flooded.

Academy officials were still assessing the damage and did not release an official estimate, saying only that the cost would be in the tens of millions of dollars. It may be weeks before the staff knows how much equipment can be salvaged.

Isabel's high-water line was visible on hallway and classroom walls Tuesday. Clocks had stopped at 10:50 p.m., the moment power went out Thursday.

The chemistry, aerospace and electrical engineering laboratories suffered the most damage when Isabel forced a 7.5-foot storm surge out of Chesapeake Bay and the Severn River onto campus Thursday night. The 338-acre campus sits where the river flows into the bay, and significant areas are built on landfill that is particularly vulnerable to flooding.

"It's just sad. It's all gone now," Derek Baker, an academy machinist for 22 years, said of the 12 devastated labs.

He was at work Tuesday helping to move equipment and office furniture out of buildings that were slowly being dried by ventilators powered by portable generators. Generators also ran pumps spewing water out of basements.

Staffers piled sandbags against doorways Thursday as Isabel ran ashore on North Carolina's Outer Banks and plowed northward across Virginia, but they were not enough to hold back the storm surge. No one was injured.

Rising water quickly blocked a bridge connecting the two halves of campus, said Lt. Julia Mason, a campus spokeswoman. But no one realized how high the water had risen until Friday, when dawn showed that waterfront benches had been submerged out of view.

Water rose 4 feet deep in the first floors of some buildings.

"When I first saw it, it was quite overwhelming," said Capt. Douglas Rau, director of the school's engineering and weapons divisions.

Computers and precision lab equipment worth thousands of dollars were water-logged. Grasses tangled the guts of a car assembled by midshipmen.

"When we teach engineering, we build things," Rau said. "We're going to have to figure out ways to do that. Until we get these (labs) up and operating, we'll be missing that part of the education."

On the Net:

Naval Academy: http://www.usna.edu

New storms heap more misery on areas recovering from Hurricane Isabel

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- The East Coast's recovery from Isabel was dealt a setback Tuesday by another round of storms that caused renewed flooding, flattened trees that had withstood the hurricane and knocked out power to thousands of customers, some for the second time.

A tornado with winds of nearly 70 mph touched down along a four-county path that crossed Richmond.

"Isabel was gravy compared to this guy," Richmond resident James Whitaker said. "We went down and got in the closet downstairs and stayed in it."

No injuries were reported from the twister, part of a weather system that also caused damage in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Isabel was blamed for at least 38 deaths, 23 of them in Virginia.

Some 40,000 customers lost power in Virginia on Tuesday, some for the second time since Isabel struck last week.

"I just restocked my refrigerator last night. This is just so unreal," said Renee Knight, whose neighborhood lost power during Isabel for about 20 hours.

Before the storms arrived, Virginia's main utility, Dominion Virginia Power, said it had restored electricity to two-thirds of the 1.8 million customers who lost service during Isabel.

Weary of living without electricity for five days, Joy Melvin had taken her 20-month-old daughter and moved in with a friend, Keisha Gilchrist, in a section of Richmond that was little affected by the hurricane.

On Tuesday, a tree slammed onto the roof above the bedroom where they slept.

"We ran from upstairs," Melvin said. "Thank God for her (Gilchrist) yelling."

The storms dumped about 4 inches of rain in parts of Maryland, where some of the same roads flooded by Isabel were under water again, and some schools closed.

Baltimore-area power outages had been reduced to about 133,000 customers since Isabel but went up again by about 50,000, said Rob Gould, spokesman for the Baltimore-area utility BGE.

"The rain is going to slow but not stop some of the work on power repairs," said Ed McDonough, a spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.

The storms caused no new damage in North Carolina, where Isabel struck land and where 46,800 customers were still waiting for electricity.

To the north, Tuesday's storm blacked out about 20,000 customers in southern New Jersey and about 34,000 in Pennsylvania. Tornadoes were spotted in two New Jersey counties.

As the storms swept into Lawrence, N.J., outside Trenton, Alessia Leutz watched a gray wall of wind-blown rain coming down her street.

"All the trees were just going, it sounded horrible," Leutz said. "It was insane. I was so freaked out."

Exhibit features photos of 'typical' newlyweds John and Jacqueline Kennedy in first home

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Jacqueline Kennedy, books under her arm, walks with fellow students to an American history class. John F. Kennedy, the junior senator from Massachusetts, studies a document through thick-rimmed spectacles. The newlyweds examine a pile of wedding photos.

Those are scenes from "Camelot at Dawn," an exhibit of 55 black and white photos taken in May 1954 -- during the couple's first year of marriage -- at their Washington town house near Georgetown University. The exhibit opened last Friday at the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building.

Photographer Orlando Suero, now 78 and retired, took the photos during a four-day shoot for McCall's magazine for an article intended to portray a typical week in the young couple's life.

Married on Sept. 12, 1953, the couple was eager to "project an idyllic portrait of happy young newlyweds" even as Kennedy was positioning himself to run for higher office, the museum said in a handout accompanying the exhibit.

The exhibit, which runs through Jan. 4, is based on "Camelot at Dawn," a book by Anne Garside, public relations director at Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute in Baltimore, in which the photos also appear.

Like many politicians, Kennedy usually avoided being photographed with glasses, but there is a shot of the bespectacled senator intently looking over some papers in his Capitol Hill office as Mrs. Kennedy helps with the mail.

Besides photos of the couple there and at their modest home at 3321 Dent Place -- a less fashionable area of the city than it is now -- there are scenes of the newlyweds walking arm and arm in Georgetown and doing homework together on her American history course at Georgetown University, as well as shots of Mrs. Kennedy walking with fellow students and, in another shot, walking a dog.

Some photos hint of the elegant, dazzling hostess Mrs. Kennedy was to become during Kennedy's White House years. One image captures her descending the stairs in a strapless crinoline gown as her husband waits at the bottom, seemingly in rapt attention.

But Kennedy also used the occasion to tease his wife with "his usual deprecating humor," the books quotes Suero as saying.

"Jack said something like, 'Jackie, you look absolutely gorgeous,"' Suero recalled, "but he was always kidding her, so he followed up this compliment with 'but if you stood sideways, you'd disappoint half the men in America."'

Mrs. Kennedy responded to the teasing by "solicitously straightening Jack's bow tie," the book notes.

The exhibit also features shots of Kennedy's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as well as photos of the brothers playing football -- images that would later become familiar to Americans.

"It's too bad I didn't stay in touch with the Kennedys," Suero said. "I might have been another Jacques Lowe."

Lowe was the photographer whose intimate shots of the Kennedys are often credited with evoking the "Camelot" myth that likened the Kennedy presidency to the halcyon days of King Arthur and his court, as portrayed in the 1960 Lerner and Lowe musical.

The pictures were given to the family of Robert Kennedy, the president's brother, who became attorney general during the Kennedy presidency.

On the Net

Arts and Industries Building: http://www.si.edu/ai/

Utah parolee arrested in abduction, killing of college senior in Maine

WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) -- A convicted felon was arrested and expected to be charged in the kidnapping and killing of an honor student at a small liberal arts college in central Maine, authorities said Tuesday.

Maine State Police said prosecutors will probably charge Edward Hackett, 47, with murder in the next couple days. Hackett was on parole from a Utah prison where he served time for a 1994 kidnapping and robbery.

The body of Colby College senior Dawn Rossignol, 21, was discovered Wednesday near a stream, a day after she was reported missing when she failed to show up for a doctor's appointment.

Her car was parked nearby, and police say she was abducted after leaving her dormitory on the Colby campus.

State police Lt. Timothy Doyle said Hackett and Rossignol did not know each other, and that Hackett had no connection to the college.

"This was a random act of violence," Doyle said.

Rossignol's death has stunned students at Colby and residents of Waterville, a town of about 15,000 people that rarely experiences violent crime. The entire state of Maine normally has fewer than 20 murders a year.

Colby president William Adams said campus security has been upgraded since Rossignol's death, but that students need to be aware and use caution.

"There's a tremendous relief here, but also a reminder," Adams said.

Doyle said police were pointed in Hackett's direction by the Department of Corrections, which checked Hackett's background and identified him as a possible suspect. Police in Utah said Hackett's first conviction in that state was in 1979 for theft, and he was in and out of the state prison during the 1980s, escaping at least twice.

Doyle declined to give more details about the investigation, including how Rossignol died.

On the Net:

Colby College: http://www.colby.edu/president/news/

Marty loses steam in northern Gulf of California

GUAYMAS, Mexico (AP) -- A storm that battered the Baja California peninsula and sideswiped Mexico's western mainland coast was downgraded to a tropical depression on Tuesday afternoon as it lost steam over the Gulf of California.

Tropical Depression Marty scattering rain on portions of the southwestern United States as its center reached the northern Gulf of California on Tuesday.

Marty's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 35 mph (55 kmh), down from the peak 100-mph (160-kmh), hurricane-force winds that slammed into the Los Cabos tourist region on the Baja California peninsula on Monday. Five deaths were attributed to the storm.

Traveling quickly over the Gulf of California early Tuesday, Marty knocked out power to this fishing village, the largest port in Sonora state. Phone lines went dead, the wind toppled neon hotel signs and water rose 2 feet (.5 meters) deep in the streets.

In a local morgue, reporters saw the bodies of two men who witnesses said were killed in the storm. One drowned as he was trying to secure his boat, the witnesses said. The circumstances of the other man's death were not known. The information could not be independently confirmed immediately.

Salesman Jon Guzman of the Pacific coastal city of Los Mochis was driving his Nissan sedan north along the coast when Marty stopped him in his tracks.

"The highway is open, but maybe it shouldn't be," Guzman said. "It's very dangerous. It's become a giant lake."

Marty slowed down as it arrived over the northern Gulf of California Tuesday. The storm was traveling north-northwest at 3 mph (5 kph), and carried rainfall into portions of Arizona, New Mexico and extreme western Texas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

On Monday, Epigmeo Lopez, 52, died after the storm blew the roof off his cardboard and wood shack in the Baja California Sur city of Cabo San Lucas, carrying the hammock in which he was sleeping with it, authorities said.

In the state's capital, La Paz, a car carrying two passengers was swept away by a flash flood, leaving one person dead and one missing, according to state civil protection authorities. A 55-year-old man was killed in western Sinaloa state when his truck was hit by a falling tree.

About 1,200 people were evacuated to public shelters in Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, both cities in Los Cabos, a resort region known for its golf courses, deep-sea fishing and dramatic seaside desert landscapes.

Some hotels were forced to rely on candles and generators Monday. But most businesses on the peninsula seemed to have escaped major damage.

"This one wasn't that big of a deal," said Dennis Wolf, manager of the Hacienda Beach Resort in Cabo San Lucas.

Bacteria blamed in death of six babies at Mexico City hospital

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The death of six newborn babies within 15 days at a public hospital in Mexico City has been attributed to a virulent bacteria, health authorities reported Tuesday.

Two more infants currently are in isolations, although only one of the two is infected with the potentially deadly bacteria, said Jose Luis Manjarrez, a spokesman for the institute that runs the hospital where the deaths took place.

The first case was detected Sept. 8 at the hospital on the north side of Mexico City run by Mexico's federal health institute serving federal government employees and teachers.

The hospital handles the delivery of between 150 and 157 newborn babies each month.

A pediatric immunologist with the hospital, Jetzamin Gutierrez, said the bacteria is of an extremely aggressive character and appears to be resistant to antibiotics.

Carried in the bloodstream, the bacteria affects the lungs, kidneys and brain in newborn babies, which still have immature immune systems, she said.

It remains unknown how the bacteria was transmitted to the newborns, Gutierrez said. Thriving in damp conditions, the bacteria could have been transmitted through the building's ventilation system, tracked in by visitors or been passed on by human contact - although hospital procedures limit direct contact with newborn babies.

"Right this moment they are taking cultures of the areas that were cleaned to see if there is any place where the bacteria remains," she said.

School bus driver given 4 years in prison in kidnapping case

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A school bus driver who stashed a rifle behind his seat and set out for the nation's capital with 13 children on a bizarre, unauthorized field trip was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison.

Otto Nuss, 65, pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges in June.

"The only thing I want to say is I'm sorry to the children and their families and their parents and also to me," he said in court Tuesday.

Nuss' trip in January 2002 touched off a frantic six-hour search and alarmed parents at the Berks Christian School in Birdsboro. None of the children was harmed.

Nuss was said to be agitated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He told the students he was going to show them that he was against Osama bin Laden.

He had taken psychiatric medication for three decades but went off it on his doctor's recommendation shortly before the trip, authorities said.

The students, ages 7 to 15, had boarded the bus for their daily 20-minute ride to school, but Nuss instead announced he was taking them on a field trip to Washington. The trip included stops to eat lunch and use the bathroom. Students said they never felt in danger, nor did any try to escape.

In the afternoon, a seemingly lost Nuss pulled into the parking lot of a discount store in Maryland and surrendered to an off-duty police officer who was in uniform.

About two dozen friends and family members packed the courtroom to support Nuss, whom they described as gentle and hardworking.

"This is really a sad thing. He doesn't belong in prison. He's no criminal," said his sister, Nancy Folk. "If he had been on his medication this would've never happened."

Student Josh Pletscher, who was 13 when Nuss kidnapped him and the others, said Tuesday he was confused by what was happening on the bus that day, but not frightened.

"It's a lot better now that the sentencing is done. We can forget about it and go on with our lives," said Pletscher, now 15, speaking to reporters outside the courthouse.

Plane crashes in Nantucket, killing pilot and injuring passenger

NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) -- A small plane struck an embankment and caught fire while trying to land early Tuesday, killing the pilot and injuring the only passenger.

The Cessna 402 skidded along the runway and hit an embankment at Nantucket Memorial Airport just before daybreak, State Police said.

The pilot was identified as David Riggs, 59, of Rochester. Leslie E. Goodspeed, 47, of Osterville, was flown to a Boston hospital with broken bones. She was listed in serious condition.

Airport assistant manager Jo-ann Norris said it was dark and foggy at the time.

The 10-seat Island Airlines plane made daily flights from Barnstable Municipal Airport to Nantucket to deliver newspapers, Norris said.

Historian Lord Blake dead at 86

LONDON (AP) -- Lord Blake, a historian and acclaimed biographer of Benjamin Disraeli, has died at the age of 86, his daughter said Tuesday.

Blake died Sept. 20 at home in Brundall, eastern England, Letitia Blake said. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Blake's biography of Disraeli, who was prime minister in 1868 and 1874-80, took 10 years to write. It was an unusually frank portrayal of a genius who could also be unprincipled, devious and a sexual adventurer.

In 1942, while serving with the 124th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, he was captured outside Tobruk in north Africa and spent 15 months as a prisoner of war in Italy.

He and four companions eventually escaped, and Blake spent the rest of the war working for the British intelligence service, MI6.

From 1947-68, he taught politics at Oxford's Christ Church College; his first major literary assignment was to edit "The Private Papers of Douglas Haig" (1952), followed by a biography of Andrew Bonar Law, the Canadian-born Scot who led the Conservative Party to power in 1922 and died in office after eight months.

From 1950-55, Blake was dean of Christ Church College and from 1959-60 was senior proctor, becoming provost of Queen's College in 1968. From 1971-87 he was Oxford's pro-vice-chancellor. For 10 years was joint editor of Oxford University Press' "Dictionary of National Biography."

He was appointed to the House of Lords in 1971.

His wife, Patricia, died in 1995; he is survived by their three daughters.

Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent collapses, dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Mark Fineman, a veteran Los Angeles Times correspondent who had reported from the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean for more than 20 years, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack in Baghdad. He was 51.

Fineman and fellow Times correspondent Alissa J. Rubin were waiting in the offices of the Iraqi Governing Council for an interview when he complained of chest pains and collapsed, Times staffers in Baghdad said. He was rushed to a hospital but doctors could not revive him.

"He was a classic foreign correspondent," Times Editor John Carroll said in a statement. "His enthusiasm was boundless and he couldn't bear to miss out on the big story regardless of personal inconvenience or physical danger."

Fineman, who often sported a cigarette and wore his hair in a blond ponytail that reached below his shoulder, was remembered as a journalist who didn't mind taking risks for a story.

"He was great. He was crazy. He was irascible. He was loving. He was wonderful," Times Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller said. "He loved a good story. He had news in his blood."

Fineman was the 18th employee of a non-Iraqi news organization to die in Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition launched military operations there on March 20.

Fineman, whose story about Iraq's new foreign investment policy appeared on the front page of Tuesday's Times, had worked for the paper for nearly 18 years.

He had been Times bureau chief in the Philippines, India, Cyprus and Mexico City and was the paper's Florida-based Caribbean correspondent before moving to Washington several years ago.

In an e-mail to a Times editor, Rubin said that she and Fineman had been waiting to interview Ayad Alawi, the head of the Iraqi National Accord, a CIA-funded opposition group, when Fineman fell ill.

Before collapsing, Fineman managed to speak Hindi to a Nepalese Ghurka guard, she said.

In the 1980s, before joining the Times, Fineman was South Asia correspondent for The Philadelphia Inquirer, based in New Delhi, India. He reported on events in the Middle East and India, including the 1984 gas leak from a Union Carbide Corp., plant in Bhopal that killed about 4,000 people.

He was married and a graduate of Syracuse University, colleagues said.

He won a variety of awards during his career, including the Overseas Press Club award in 2001, a National Headliners award in 1991, an American Society of Newspaper Editors award for deadline writing in 1987 and a George Polk award in 1984.

Fineman is survived by his wife, Michelle Prosser-Fineman of Washington; stepdaughter Harmony Little of Lexington, Ky.; stepson Sebastian Hulthen of Stockholm, Sweden; his mother, Juanita Fineman of Highland Park, Ill., and his brother, Glen Fineman of Omaha, Neb.

Odds and ends

RICHLAND CENTER, Wis. (AP) -- A woman who outlived the inscription on her tombstone died at the age of 101 after a company corrected the monument for free.

Gladys Briggs' tombstone in Basswood Cemetery listed her birth year of 1901 and "19" for the century in which she was expected to die.

She said in August at the time that she never thought she would outlive the 20th century when she bought the stone with her second husband, Buford, who died in 1968. "No I sure didn't," she said. "Who ever would have thought that way back then?"

The Krause Monument Co. erased the incorrect century from her stone for free.

Briggs, who died peacefully Friday, had a hand in planning her own funeral. She picked out her dress and her favorite hymns, "Ivory Palaces" and "Amazing Grace."

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- Being a librarian in this small college town 40 miles west of Indianapolis is a dangerous job.

Librarians Debbie Barry and Christina Crouch were bitten by a woman as they tried to stop her from stealing $70 from the public library's cash drawer.

Barry said a man tried to distract her Saturday while a woman grabbed the money and fled.

Barry and Crouch chased the woman outside and wrestled with her while library patrons called police. The woman bit Crouch on the chest and Barry's thumb before the man pulled her free and they ran off.

"When I grabbed her it was kind of stupid," Barry said. "What I should have done was yanked her hair and sat on her, but I didn't think of it at the time."

Anna M. Davis, 24, and her live-in boyfriend, Kevin T. Kamradt, 25, were caught a few minutes later, police Officer Bob Rivers said. An officer at the Montgomery County Jail reported finding $71 on Davis.

Davis and Kamradt were jailed Monday on robbery and battery charges.

Crouch and Barry were treated for their injuries and returned to work Monday.

Larry Hathaway, director of the Crawfordsville District Public Library, said the library's cash drawer had been moved from a desk in the main foyer after three thefts in recent months.

"I tell the librarians not to try to argue with robbers," Hathaway said.

GLENVILLE, N.Y. (AP) -- Mary Malewicz is miffed over her missing monkey, Mickey.

The black-and-white Capuchin monkey escaped around 4 p.m. Sunday from Malewicz's home, 20 miles northwest of Albany.

Since then, police spotted him in the woods, but the critter just scampered off. Area residents have come across the precocious primate, but it has avoided capture.

Malewicz is even using her other monkey, Kate, to help lure Mickey back home. Mickey is worth about $7,000, she said.

Malewicz says the toothless monkey, whose last owner defanged him after he nipped her, is tame and friendly. She suggests that anyone who spots the monkey should walk up to him and grab his tail.

"He'll wrap his tail around your arm and you can just carry him," she said. "But hang on tight because he'll take off again."

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- Some convicted drunken drivers in the Florida Panhandle have been ordered to put bumper stickers on their cars asking, "How's my driving? … The judge wants to know!!!"

Escambia County Judge William White said he hopes the bumper stickers, which include an identification number for each driver and a toll-free phone number, will reduce repeat offenses for driving under the influence of alcohol.

"We want to influence people to correct their behavior rather than just use this as sort of a monitoring system," White said.

White said he tried to use bumper stickers saying only "Convicted DUI" in the past simply to shame violators. He hopes the call-in stickers will be a stronger deterrent.

"I see this as providing very little deterrent," lawyer Richard Alvoid said. "Punishment should be enough rather than also shaming people."

But insurance adjuster Doug Meyers sees merit in the judge's order.

"If people are embarrassed, they shouldn't drink and drive," Meyers said.

Kelsey Grammer is interested in politics - when he's finished with acting

NEW YORK (AP) -- The star of "Frasier" may be ready to move from radio psychology to politics.

Kelsey Grammer says he might be interested in running for the U.S. Senate from California when he's finished with acting.

"If you have the good fortune to become wealthy doing what you love to do, what happens is you now have an obligation to give back in some way," Grammer said Monday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."

He won't be joining Arnold Schwarzenegger on the campaign trail anytime soon. Grammer said he wouldn't start in politics until he's done acting, and there's more he wants to do with that job. This is the final season of NBC's "Frasier."

Grammer, 48, kept his political views vague during his appearance on the cable news network.

"I would like to try to rid the country of the idea that it's the rich against the poor," he said.

Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck turn heads with routine courthouse visit

HINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) -- Just because Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez aren't doing much of anything doesn't mean they're not making news.

Hollywood's most overexposed couple set gossip pages aflame anew on Tuesday after they popped into a south Georgia courthouse near Affleck's Hampton Island home.

But apparently it was a gun license, not a marriage license, that the on-again, off-again super couple was seeking Monday.

"Affleck wanted to know where he could apply for a gun permit," said Liberty County Sheriff Don Martin, who mugged for a photo before sending the couple down the hall to the probate court.

The appearance has unleashed a horde of paparazzi and celebrity reporters onto the small town of Hinesville, where a court clerk verified Tuesday morning - apparently not for the first time - that the couple did not apply for a marriage license.

F. Barry Wilkes, the Liberty County clerk and court administrator, told Us Weekly magazine for its Oct. 6 issue that Affleck and Lopez requested an application for a marriage license several months ago, but added, "If they had gotten married (already), I would know about it."

Affleck's spokesman, Ken Sunshine, said only: "We never comment on his personal life."

The pair, whose recent film "Gigli" bombed after abysmal reviews, had planned to marry Sept. 14 before abruptly calling off the wedding. It would have been the third marriage for Lopez, 33, and the first for Affleck, 31.

David Lee Roth cancels tour dates

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Singer David Lee Roth has canceled the rest of his fall tour because of a martial arts accident.

"It was an incident onstage where he was doing a kung fu maneuver and he got hit with a staff that he uses," spokesman Todd Brodginski said. "He was doing a very fast, complicated 15th century samurai move."

The former Van Halen frontman needed 21 stitches because of the Sept. 17 accident in Philadelphia. He called off seven dates in the tour of clubs and theaters because of the injury. Two dates had been canceled because of Hurricane Isabel.

The singer said in a statement that it was hard to sing and dance with the injury, but that the dates may be rescheduled next year.

"Thanks for a great tour," he said. "See ya down the road."

Brodginski said sales were strong on the tour before the injury.

People in the news

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Elizabeth Taylor has asked a judge to strike "inflammatory, irrelevant and false" allegations about the actress from a lawsuit that her former gardener filed.

Willem Van Muyden claimed he suffered improper sexual advances from her butler in his Superior Court lawsuit filed in July, which seeks unspecified damages from Taylor. Van Muyden claims in the lawsuit that he was fired without being paid $294,000 Taylor owes him for 10 years of gardening work.

Van Muyden also makes allegations in the lawsuit about Taylor having a relationship with the butler, Jean-Luc Lacquement, who filed a notice of demurrer that argues the gardener's complaint has no merit.

The butler's attorney did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.

In papers filed Sept.15, Taylor's representatives asked the court to strike those details from the lawsuit along with Van Muyden's claims for punitive damages.

"These allegations are included merely as inflammatory, irrelevant and false insinuations which do not belong in the complaint. … They add nothing to the complaint except an inappropriate intimation of scandal," the document states, adding that the gardener was trying embarrass the 71-year-old actress into a settlement.

Taylor's attorney, Martin Singer, said Monday he would prefer if the judge heeded Lacquement's filing and threw the lawsuit out because the gardener "has no legitimate claims."

Van Muyden's attorney, Mark Leonardo, said he was "not surprised" by the counter filings, but said he expects his client's lawsuit will prevail.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst has been sued by the St. Paul-based security company that employed a guard Durst allegedly kicked in the head during a 1999 concert here.

Azzone Security-Investigation Agency Inc., or ASIA, filed the lawsuit Monday in Ramsey County. The lawsuit names Durst, his production companies and his record labels as defendants.

The company seeks a judgment against Durst and the other defendants for the $49,663 in workers' compensation it claims it already paid and for expected future payments.

Durst allegedly kicked security guard Patrick Estes in the head onstage during the concert, according to police reports. Durst was apologetic, police said then, because he apparently had mistaken Estes for a fan he believed was attacking his personal security guard.

Police arrested the 33-year-old singer, but an assault charge later was dismissed, said his lawyer, Earl Gray. Gray said he was not familiar with the new complaint.

Estes filed his own civil lawsuit against Durst leading to an April 2000 settlement in which Durst and other defendants agreed to pay the guard $100,000, according to court records.

DETROIT (AP) -- Stevie Wonder has asked a federal judge to free a man convicted as a leader of a West Coast-to-Detroit cocaine and heroin ring.

The Grammy-winning singer came to U.S. District Court Monday for Antonio Ameen's sentencing hearing. Ameen, 37, received 20 years in prison.

Wonder asked to speak in favor of allowing Ameen to remain free on bond during an appeal that is based on race bias. U.S. District Judge John O'Meara declined the request, saying Wonder had covered all his points in a Sept. 30, 2002, letter.

In the letter, Wonder, a former Detroiter whose legal name is Steveland Morris, said he'd known Ameen for several years and was impressed with Ameen's parenting during a long, hard criminal case.

"Please look within the deepest part of your heart, spirit and history and use any discretion that you have to keep this man with his family as long as possible," the letter said.

Over the objections of U.S. Assistant Attorney John Freeman, O'Meara said Ameen and associate Steven Fantroy, 38, of Detroit could remain free until the Bureau of Prisons finds beds for them. O'Meara said he also will consider whether to allow the men to remain free pending their appeals.

Both men said they were denied a fair trial because they are black and no blacks served on their jury.

Wonder, 53, and Ameen met after Ameen became a musician and producer in Los Angeles.

WENTZVILLE, Mo. (AP) -- A suspicious blaze has destroyed a motel on Chuck Berry's estate, fire officials said.

The assistant chief of the Wentzville fire district, Austin Worcester, said no one was injured. The cause of the fire was being investigated.

Worcester said the 76-year-old singer-guitarist was out of state at the time of the Saturday evening fire.

The building, known as the old Chuck Berry lodge, was in unincorporated St. Charles County. It had eight suites and used to house Berry's visitors, Worcester said, but had been used for storage in recent years. It's located on property about 40 miles outside of St. Louis, near Wentzville.

The two-alarm fire started around 6:30 p.m. Other buildings on the property weren't damaged.

Berry pioneered a revolution in rock music with hits including "Maybellene" and "Johnny B. Goode." He's a member of both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Three bronze statues of the "Peanuts" gang are now permanent residents in downtown St. Paul's Landmark Center.

The bronze statues are a tribute to the late cartoonist Charles Schulz, a Minnesota native who created the "Peanuts" comic strip. Schulz died of colon cancer at 77 in February 2000.

Thousands braved Sunday's cool weather to attend a "Party in the Park" at Landmark Plaza and Rice Park, where the statues went on display.

The city raised the $1 million for the works by auctioning off polyurethane "Peanuts" sculptures that were set up around town during the past four summers.

The 4-foot-high statues are of Charlie Brown seated with Snoopy on his lap, Schroeder playing his piano with Lucy leaning across the piano, and Linus and Sally looking over a stone wall.

A fourth statue is under construction and will feature Marcie and Peppermint Patty.

The sculptures are designed to be child-safe with no sharp edges or small nooks where tiny hands or feet could get caught.

On the Net:

http://www.snoopy.com/

SEQUIM, Wash. (AP) -- A pistol that John Wayne used in a movie has been reported stolen from his family's collection on display at the John Wayne Marina building in this Olympic Peninsula town.

"They lifted the glass out somehow," assistant harbormaster Tyler Kish said Sunday. "They didn't even take the holster to the gun."

Police were investigating the theft, which was discovered Saturday morning. The gun, which had been plugged and could not be fired, was the only item taken from a locked display case that has also contained cowboy hats, photos and other memorabilia from the late Western actor's movies, Kish said.

Investigators have removed the glass door to check for fingerprints, and the remaining items have been removed from the case for safekeeping, he added.

The marina was built in 1985 on 22 acres of land donated by Wayne's family. Before his death in 1979, the film star maintained a home in Sequim and kept his yacht, Wild Goose, there.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gwyneth Paltrow says it's harder to spend time in New York since her father's death a year ago.

Bruce Paltrow, a producer and director who worked on acclaimed TV series including "The White Shadow" and "St. Elsewhere," died at 58 of throat cancer.

"I love New York, and I'll always be a New York girl at heart - but it's a very different place without my father around to meet me and have coffee with. Not that I drink coffee," Paltrow, who's famous for her macrobiotic diet, told Vogue magazine for its October issue.

"I do miss home," the actress added. "I feel very connected to American girlishness."

Paltrow, who turns 31 on Saturday, said she spends about half her time in London and has traveled this summer to Scotland, Australia, France and Spain. Her boyfriend, Chris Martin, is the lead singer of the British band Coldplay.

"When something as terrible as your father dying happens, you start redefining everything," she said. "I feel the finiteness of life - I'm still grieving pretty heavily - but I realize that we are all going to die, so I want to be with people that I love, and I want to travel."

Her latest film, "Sylvia," in which she stars as poet Sylvia Plath, opens Oct. 17.

SEATTLE (AP) -- In the old macho days, a football player wouldn't dare miss a kickoff to coach his wife through childbirth. But Seattle's Shaun Alexander wouldn't play Sunday until he felt Heaven in his hands and looked into her eyes.

She was all of 6 pounds, 12 ounces and felt lighter than a football. Her timing was impeccable for the daughter of a running back, arriving at 12:37 p.m. -- 28 minutes before kickoff.

As big as the game was for the Seahawks against the NFC West division rival St. Louis Rams, Alexander was willing to skip it to be with his wife, Valerie, for the birth of their first baby.

"I said to Valerie, 'If we're going to do this, let's do it early so we can watch the game,"' he said. "I mean, my wife is laughing, she has such a great sense of humor, and we had the baby. The game hadn't even started before she was born."

He was there to pull his daughter into the world, cut the umbilical cord and look at her eyes for the first time -- perhaps the most thrilling moment in a man's life.

"It was my first catch of the day," the proud papa said.

When he knew Valerie and their daughter, Heaven Nashay Alexander, were all right, he climbed into a car that followed the lead blockers of a police escort, sirens blaring, to Seahawks Stadium, 15 miles away.

Alexander got into the game with 9 minutes, 10 seconds left in the second quarter. The Seahawks had been stagnant on offense and they quickly gave him the ball.

Alexander got them going with gains of 12 and 17 yards on his first two carries and finished with 58 yards rushing on 14 carries, plus three catches for 8 yards. His 5-yard run late in the fourth quarter set up Seattle's winning touchdown in a 24-23 victory over the Rams that kept the Seahawks perfect at 3-0.

New Potter ads reach out to older, hipper readers

NEW YORK (AP) -- The ad shows a tattooed biker, scowling and shaggy-haired, against a harsh backdrop of blue and black.

"Flying cars. Fire Whiskey. Death Eaters," reads the caption above the picture.

At the bottom, next to the catch phrase "We all have our reasons. What's yours?" comes the real pitch:

"There's some pretty tough stuff in Harry Potter -- bad guys so bad they're called Death Eaters. That's one of the wicked reasons even bikers think Harry Potter is cool enough to ride with them."

Having already conquered the children's market, Scholastic, Inc., the U.S. publisher of J.K. Rowling's multimillion-selling series, is targeting adults, ages 18 to 35. Potter ads featuring bikers, skateboarders and couch potatoes will appear in Rolling Stone and other magazines throughout October.

"We felt we needed to think out of the box and reach out to readers who would not normally pick up a copy of Harry Potter unless somebody placed it in their hands," Barbara Marcus, president of Scholastic Children's Books, told The Associated Press on Tuesday, a day before the publisher was to officially announce the new campaign.

Besides Rolling Stone, the promotions also will run in US Weekly, Outside Magazine and TimeOut New York, the only one of the four magazines in which Scholastic has advertised before. The image is new, but Marcus says the covers of the Potter books will not be changed.

"We think the covers are great," Marcus says. "We just want the ad campaign to pique the interest of adult readers enough so that they pick up the books."

Rival publishers say they have never heard of a children's book being advertised in such a way, but praise Scholastic for doing so. "It sounds very funny and witty," says Lisa Holton, senior vice president and publisher of Disney's children's books division.

"I think it's fabulous Scholastic is going after that audience. … A lot of us, I would think, are rooting for Scholastic to do really well."

Statistics released Tuesday by Scholastic makes you wonder how many readers are left to reach. Sales for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth of a planned seven Potter books by Rowling, have reached 11 million just three months after publication. That well exceeds the announced print run of 9.3 million and approaches the 11.3 million hardcover total of Potter IV, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," published three years ago.

And grown-ups have long been an important market for the Potter books, with a consumer study released in 2000 showing that 43 percent of purchases were made by adults.

"But there's a strong 18-35 demographic that may not have come into contact with Harry, people who probably don't have children," Marcus says.

"What we're saying is: Harry Potter is for someone who likes to shop, likes to read gossip columns, likes to have fun with their books."'

One ad shows a dark-eyed woman wearing a sheer, sleeveless dress and shopping for shoes. "There are some pretty stylish things in Harry Potter - invisibility cloaks, i.e., the only item that goes with everything in a girl's closet," the caption reads.

"That's just one of the fabulous reasons so many fashionistas are totally cool with being seen toting Harry Potter."

Scientists track ancient weather through redwood rings

ASHLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Researchers at Southern Oregon University are studying the rings of ancient redwood trees to understand the last 1,000 years of climate in the Rogue Valley.

Scientists will analyze oxygen content in the annual growth rings to produce a record of droughts, floods and El Nino cycles in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

Two professors, Greg Jones and John Roden, will work with Todd Dawson of the University of California, Berkeley, in the three-year, $457,000 project funded by the National Science Foundation.

Jones is a professor of geography with an interest in climate studies. Roden is a biologist who has developed a model for determining how oxygen molecules from water are incorporated into wood cellulose. Dawson is a plant physiologist.

Jones said the project is similar to those that study climate by analyzing the composition of air bubbles trapped in centuries-old ice sheets.

With no ice sheets to study here, the scientists will measure a relatively rare kind of oxygen atom in the wood.

Researchers will look for unusual concentrations of "heavy" oxygen atoms known as O-18, which have two more neutrons in the nucleus than the more common O-16 atoms.

Jones said fog typically contains more heavy oxygen than either rain or groundwater, and there is generally more fog in the coastal redwood zone during extended periods of warmer, dry weather.

Redwoods, which derive much of their moisture from fog, would tend to have more O-18 in their wood during years when there was more fog and less rain.

Jones said researchers will analyze wood from two slabs of redwood trees that were previously cut, and cores will be taken from living trees. No trees will be cut down for the study.

The study could help climatologists understand how periods when warm water collects in the Pacific Ocean - the El Nino - affect regional climates.

Jones said plans call for publishing results in a scientific journal.

Man pleads guilty to raping and impregnating retarded woman

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- A nurse's aide pleaded guilty Tuesday to raping and impregnating a severely retarded woman at a nursing home. The woman later gave birth to the man's child.

Phillip Mebane, 33, could get up to 20 years at sentencing Wednesday for sexual battery on a mentally defective person.

The woman, a resident at Laurel Hill Cluster for 18 years, is mentally and physically disabled from cerebral palsy and cannot walk, talk or turn over. She was raped in December 2001 and found to be pregnant five months later.

The woman gave birth to a boy in July 2002, and the baby's DNA matched Mebane's. The child is being raised by the woman's mother, Sally Arce-Meineche.

Arce-Meineche went public with her daughter's ordeal shortly after the pregnancy's discovery. The nursing home installed a surveillance camera in the woman's room and assigned only female staffers to her care.

State investigators found the 24-bed home at fault for failing to prevent the assault, for failing to discover the pregnancy until the second trimester and for not notifying Arce-Meineche in a timely manner.

Two weeks ago, Phillip Strong, the 75-year-old husband of a care-home operator, was arrested and accused of raping and impregnating a retarded woman. He is awaiting trial.

Gov. Jeb Bush unsuccessfully sought to have a guardian appointed for the fetus, touching off a dispute over abortion. The alleged victim, a 23-year-old woman, gave birth to a daughter last month.